NEW INFORMATION-STORAGE ELEMENTS ON THE BASIS OF METASTABLE ELECTRONIC STATES

A new class of photochromic substances is introduced, which are suitab le for information storage elements with extremely high capacity on th e basis of nearly infinitely long-living metastable electronic states. Their life time is longer than 10(9) s. Absorption spectra show the w avelength region, in which the write- read- and erase-cycle can be per formed. The storage velocity is measured with time-dependent transmiss ion spectroscopy. As the change of the absorption is a function of lig ht intensity and time, every transmission value between zero and satur ation can be used as an additional parameter for the storage of inform ation.