"There is nowhere less": scientists from IBM have stored information in the atom
To save one bit of information on the hard disk requires about 100 thousand atoms. On March 8, scientists from IBM Research presented the results of their research, which showed that you can save the same amount of information in just one atom. The proliferation of this technology will allow you to record Apple's music catalog of 26 million songs on a storage device the size of a small coin.
/ Flickr / ia walsh / CC
The famous physicist Richard Feynman, back in 1983, said that humanity is capable of creating a computing device in which numbers are represented by a string of atoms that are in one of two states. This technology is gradually becoming a reality.
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It works as follows: a holmium atom (large and with several unpaired electrons) is placed on a substrate of magnesium oxide. In this case, the holmium acquires the properties of magnetic bistability, that is, it has two stable magnetic states with different spins.
Researchers use a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and apply a voltage of 150 mV at 10 μA to the atom. Such a large influx of electrons causes the holmium atom to change the magnetic spin state. Since each of the two states has different conductivity profiles, the STM needle is able to determine which of them is an atom. This is done by applying a lower voltage (75 mV) and measuring the resistance.
In order to make sure that the holmium atom changed its magnetic state and this was not a side effect of the work of the STM, the scientists placed a nearby iron atom that responds to magnetic oscillations. This made it possible to confirm that during the experiment it was possible to preserve the magnetic state of the atom for a long time.
“To demonstrate the ability to read and write information, we conducted experiments with two atoms. We managed to encode four possible bit combinations - 00, 01, 10, 11 - and count each of them. This proves that in the future, mankind will be able to create "magnetic atomic memory," the report says IBM Research.
Further, the researchers plan to explore the possibility of working with other elements of the periodic table, clusters of atoms and small molecules. The appearance of a commercial solution, however, is not yet talked about.
PS A few more interesting materials from the blog Vas Experts:
/ Flickr / ia walsh / CCThe famous physicist Richard Feynman, back in 1983, said that humanity is capable of creating a computing device in which numbers are represented by a string of atoms that are in one of two states. This technology is gradually becoming a reality.
')
It works as follows: a holmium atom (large and with several unpaired electrons) is placed on a substrate of magnesium oxide. In this case, the holmium acquires the properties of magnetic bistability, that is, it has two stable magnetic states with different spins.
Researchers use a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and apply a voltage of 150 mV at 10 μA to the atom. Such a large influx of electrons causes the holmium atom to change the magnetic spin state. Since each of the two states has different conductivity profiles, the STM needle is able to determine which of them is an atom. This is done by applying a lower voltage (75 mV) and measuring the resistance.
In order to make sure that the holmium atom changed its magnetic state and this was not a side effect of the work of the STM, the scientists placed a nearby iron atom that responds to magnetic oscillations. This made it possible to confirm that during the experiment it was possible to preserve the magnetic state of the atom for a long time.
“To demonstrate the ability to read and write information, we conducted experiments with two atoms. We managed to encode four possible bit combinations - 00, 01, 10, 11 - and count each of them. This proves that in the future, mankind will be able to create "magnetic atomic memory," the report says IBM Research.
Further, the researchers plan to explore the possibility of working with other elements of the periodic table, clusters of atoms and small molecules. The appearance of a commercial solution, however, is not yet talked about.
PS A few more interesting materials from the blog Vas Experts:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/321118/
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