IBM offers a new way to superdense information: 1 bit to 1 atom

IBM has developed a method for storing information, which in the future may make it possible to record huge amounts of data in a very small area of ​​the drive. We are talking about the recording density of 1 bit to 1 atom. In order to understand the essence of the achievement, suffice it to say that now the recording density of information on the hard disk is 1 bit to 100 thousand atoms.

If, however, IBM’s achievement can be achieved in practice, then it will be possible to save, for example, the entire iTunes music collection on a carrier the size of a credit card, which is about 35 million musical compositions. To record such a density, scientists decided to use the atoms of the rare-earth metal holmium from the group of lanthanides.

The atoms of this metal are located on a substrate of magnesium oxide. Holmium retains the magnetic poles of the atoms of its crystal lattice even in the presence of third-party magnets. To record 1 bit, an ultrafine needle is used, which generates an electric current, changing the orientation of the atom. The main problem lies in precisely changing the magnetic centers of the atoms. In addition, in addition to recording information, it still needs to be counted.
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IBM Almaden Research Center specialists used a scanning tunneling microscope, passing electrical impulses with it. Each such pulse interchanges the magnetic poles of an atom. This corresponds to 0 or 1. It is worth noting that the effect of preserving individual magnetization is manifested in holmium atoms only on a substrate of magnesium oxide.

But the reading of the state of the metal atoms is made using the effect of tunnel magnetoresistance. This process occurs when the iron atom is located at a distance of one nanometer from the holmium atom. After this, the so-called electron paramagnetic resonance of the electron spin occurs with the registration of the magnetic state of the holmium atom. That is, we can talk about reading information.


A special sensor was developed by IBM about a year ago. It belongs to the class of electronic spin resonance sensors. At certain frequencies and magnetic field strengths, an unpaired electron in an atom of a rare-earth metal loses its thermodynamic equilibrium. The moment of exit and is fixed by the sensor. The sensor allows you to read the magnetic state of the carrier atom.

In an experiment dedicated to testing a new method of recording and reading information, scientists managed to read the state of two holmium atoms. If scientists could realize all the possibilities of this way of working with information, then in just one gram of holmium one could save about 456 exabytes of data.

Unfortunately, this method is still very difficult to implement in practice, since it requires both a tunneling electron microscope cooled by liquid nitrogen and a vacuum. However, this is only the initial stage of research. And, as it often happens, in the future the method can be improved, supplemented with new technologies and implemented.