Single-atom magnets to pave the way for smaller and denser storage devices: IBM
Single-atom magnets to pave the way for smaller and
denser storage devices: IBM
A new discovery could pave the way for magnetic storage
systems that are smaller, denser, and more powerful, according to IBM Research.
By Tas Bindi | March 9, 2017 -- 05:59 GMT (21:59 PST)
IBM researchers have found a way to store one bit of data
in a magnet consisting of just one atom, the company announced on Wednesday.
Prior to the discovery, the smallest bistable magnetic
bits consisted of 3 to 12 atoms, IBM said, and hard drives use about 10,000
atoms to store a single bit.
The ability to read and write one bit of data on one atom
creates new possibilities for developing smaller and denser storage devices,
according to IBM. The company said the discovery makes it conceivable to store
an entire library of 35 million songs on a device no bigger than a credit card.
"Magnetic bits lie at the heart of hard-disk drives,
tape and next-generation magnetic memory," said Christopher Lutz, lead
nanoscience researcher at IBM Research Almaden in San Jose, California.
"We conducted this research to understand what happens when you shrink
technology down to the most fundamental extreme -- the atomic scale."
Earlier this month, researchers at IBM Research Almaden
announced that they had developed an electron-spin resonance (ESR) sensor consisting
of a single iron atom on the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM),
allowing scientists to measure the magnetic field of individual atoms by
placing the sensor right next to it. The single-atom magnet was created using
the ESR sensor fitted on the STM.
The single-atom, read-write storage system is arranged by
placing atoms on a substrate of magnesium oxide that acts as an insulating
layer between the metal electrodes beneath it and the magnetic atoms on top of
it.
Attached to the magnesium oxide surface is the holmium
atom, which scientists say is an ideal data storage medium given its stability.
It can hold its polarisation under many conditions including the presence of
magnets.
When the STM introduces electrical current to the holmium
atom, it flips the magnetic north and south poles of the atom, IBM explained.
The STM also uses liquid helium for cooling that allows the atoms to retain
their magnetic orientations long enough to be written and read.
The company demonstrated that two magnetic atoms could be
written and read independently even when they were separated by just 1
nanometre, which could culminate in a magnetic storage system that is 1,000
times denser than today's hard disk drives and solid state memory chips.
Additionally, with a one-bit-per-atom ratio, such a system could also store
significantly more data which could pave the way for smaller datacentres,
computers, and mobile devices, IBM said.
However, while the discovery suggests a path towards data
storage at the atomic level, IBM admitted that the way in which individual
magnetic centres can be accessed is still unclear.
Another recent breakthrough in storage technology at
Columbia University and the New York Genome Center could allow us to store 215
petabytes of data into one gram of DNA. While practical applications are years
away, DNA holds promise for data storage because of its superior density to
tape, disk, and optical media. It can also store information for thousands of
years when kept in the right conditions.
Mid-last year, a team of physicists in the Netherlands
developed a storage device composed of chlorine atoms on a tiny metal surface
that promises to one day be scaled up to hold about 10 terabytes of data on a
1cm-square space.
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