a secure optical data storage could be at your fingertips.

1. Data Storage On
Fingernail
Presented by:
WAJIDA VIQAR

2. CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Definition terms
• Basic approach
• How data is stored on fingernails
• Apparatus used
• The optical setup for reading out the bit data
• Data storing on nails
• Data reading from nails
• Advantages
• Disadvantages
• Conclusion
• References

3. Introduction
• Yoshio Hayasaki of tokushima university of Japan and his colleagues
discovered that data can be written into human fingernail while
ensuring data security.
• They have used a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the
fingernails and a fluorescence microscope to read it out.
• Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and stored data lasts for 6
months- length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely
replaced.

4. Definition terms
• Data.
• Data storage.
• Fingernail storage.
• Femtosecond laser.
• Fluorescence microscope.
• Fluorescence.

5. Basic Approach
• Used a femtosecond laser system to write the data into the human
fingernails.
• Used a fluorescence microscope to read it out.
• The key to reading data out is that the nail’s fluorescence increase at
the point irradiated by the femtosecond laser pulses.
• The multilayer technique offers a data storage density of 2 Gb/cm³.

6. Contd..

7. How data is stored on fingernail?
• When the femtosecond laser pulses strikes the sample, structural
changes occur at the focal point.
• The researchers believes that multiphoton absorption & a micro
explosion cause keratin protein in the fingernail to denature & the
fluorescence to increase.
• Each “bit” of information has diameter of 3.1 microns & is written by
a single femtosecond pulse.

8. Contd..

9. ApparatusUsed

10. Theoptical setup for reading out the
bit data
o Fluorescence microscope consisting of a
• A xenon arc lamp as an exciting light source.
• Filter blocks. Each of the filter blocks consists of an excitation filter
which is a band-pass filter, a diachronic mirror (DM), which is a
high-pass filter , and a barrier filter (BF), which is a high-pass filter.
The spatial distribution of the fluorescence and the spectrum of a
small area of the fingernail are observed with a CCD image sensor
and a spectrometer.

11. Cont..

12. Datastoring on Fingernails
• When the femtosecond laser pulse is focused inside a material,
molecules are subjected to multi-photon ionization and optical field
ionization at a local volume where the laser pulse is focused.

13. Contd..

14. Contd..

15. Datareading from Fingernails
• An fluorescence optical microscope containing a filtered xenon arc
lamp/mercury arc lamp excites the fluorescence and read out the
data stored at various depths.

16. Advantages
 Person’s authentication.
 Does not suffer from problems such as theft, forgery, loss of
recording media.
 Highly secure data transportation.
 Can be used for intelligence.
 Don’t need to carrying around a large number of cards, money and
papers.

17. Disadvantages
 Fingernail storage has a limited life because human nails grow out.
 Chance of losing data if nail is clipped short at regular intervals.

18. Conclusion
• They demonstrated that the increased fluorescence of the structure
is useful for reading out three-dimensionally recorded data inside a
human fingernail. They recorded three bit planes inside a human
fingernail. They demonstrated that three bit planes can be read out
with little cross-talk by using fluorescence readout. Furthermore,
they demonstrated that fluorescence can be observed for up to 6
months, corresponding to the time required for a nail to grow from
root to tip. Under these recording conditions, a recording density of
2 G bit/cm³ is achievable.

19. References
• Takita, M. Watanabe, H. Yamamoto, S. Matsuo, H. Misawa, Y. Hayasaki, and N.
Nishida, “Optical bit recording in a human fingernail”, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 43,
168-171 (2004).
• Y. Hayasaki, H. Takagi, A. Takita, H. Yamamoto, N. Nishida, and H. Misawa,
“Processing structures on human fingernail surface by a focused near-
infrared femtosecond laser pulse”, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 43, 8089-8093 (2004).
• Takita, A., H. Yamamoto, Y. Hayasaki, N. Nishida, and H. Misawa, “Three-
dimensional optical memory using a human fingernail", Optics Express, Vol.
13, No. 12, 4560-4567, 2005.
• Takita, A., Y. Hayasaki, and N. Nishida, “Femtosecond laser processing system
with target tracking feature", Journal of Laser Micro/ Nano engineering,
• Vol. 1, No. 3, 288-291, 2006.