New step on the way to store 1 bit in an atom – La Nacion Costa Rica

 Updated July 18, 2016 at 07:30 pm
 

London

A group scientists in the Netherlands developed a data storage device capable of storing information density up to 500 terabits in an area of ​​only 6 square centimeters, a study published Monday by the journal Nature .

“in theory, this storage density would keep all the books written by the man on a stamp,” explains the researcher Sander Otte, the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, at the Dutch university of Delft.

the expert points out that, every day, modern society creates more than one billion gigabytes of new data, so it is particularly important the fact each bit takes up as little space as possible.

What did they do?

the researchers have managed to build a memory of 1 kilobyte (8,000 bits) in which each bit is represented by the position of a single chlorine atom.

So they reached a density storage 500 terabits per square inch (6.4516 square centimeters), ie 500 times more powerful than the best memory hard drives currently on the market.

this , covered a copper surface with chlorine atoms, on the theory proposed in 1959 by physicist Richard Feynman.

in his essay “There is enough space at the bottom,” Feynman suggested that if a platform allow deploy individual atoms around a quite orderly pattern, it would be possible to store a unit of information in each atom.

the experts of the Kavli Institute point out that although it is possible to control the location of these atoms, there are technical limitations.

technical Details

Specifically, underscore that temperatures in the range of liquid helium (4 kelvin) to achieve stable configurations are needed, while for changing the position of a single atom is necessary to regenerate the entire surface.

with these considerations in mind, experts were able to maintain the position of more than 8,000 “vacancies chlorine” (missing atoms) for more than 40 hours at a temperature of 77 kelvin.

After creating a binary alphabet from the “vacant positions” were able after storing different texts, including the aforementioned Feynman, on the surface, which could change at will bit by bit.

“in its current form, this memory can only operate under conditions of full vacuum and the temperature of liquid nitrogen (77 kelvin), so we are still far from storing data on an atomic scale. But we have taken a big step “said Otte.