Holographic Data Storage (HDS) developer, Polight Technologies, announced that it will close through a members’ voluntary winding up. Since the late 1990s the key and missing element to enable HDS to transform removable data storage technologies has been the media – the material into which data is actually written. Polight was spun out of Cambridge University to exploit novel materials for this purpose. However the likely duration to reach full commercialisation combined with the resulting funding needed was determined to be un-economic in the current difficult financing environment.

Michael Ledzion, Polight’s CEO commented: “Obviously this is a very sad day. The team have worked extremely hard to develop the product, but the combination of the technology and financing challenges made the risk just too great. I should like to thank everyone involved in this venture for the enormous effort they have put into it. I am sure that holographic data storage has a future once a suitable material has been found. As is always the case in the data storage business: it’s a question of timing.”