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Spintronics in your Future?
slugfro writes: "Do faster boot times and RAM that maintains memory after shutdown sound interesting? This article by a Science Magazine author details the study of utilizing the spin of electrons rather than just the charge in electronic devices (hence the name 'Spintronics'). Anyone out there researching this or have more info?" We do a story about MRAM every four months or so, and each time commercial development is a few years in the future. :)
The cheap solution for persistant RAM is to provide a constant power source for your RAM from either some form of battery or just a power source that is always on.
Where this stuff is actually useful is for better Hard Drives. In fact it's already being used for that, and has been for a while.
Not really. It's basically as binary as traditional computing, just using a different measure for "on" and "off": "up" and "down". Look:
Just like the positive/negative duo of charge, the 0s and 1s of current information technology, this up/down pairing makes spin an attractive possibility for encoding and carrying information electronically.
The "quantum-readyness" of this technology is the same as charge. The cat is spinning both upand down at the same time, until you open the box.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
This would be so great for portable computers.
Imagine keeping a laptop/handheld with you wherever you go, but only having it on when you need it. You can instantly close the lid on it, shutting off it's power. This would preserve battery life to possibly many days at a time for a traveler. Then when you need to use the computer, just open the lid, and it's exactly where it was when you closed it.
Desktop computers would also be nice to instantly shut off and turn on at the same state, but the portable computer market seems much more useful, especially for conserving battery life.
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As to the spin and orbital properties of an individual atom, particularly the risk which comes with such a density of memory, what could easily and commonly affect these properties? Strong RF? Magnetic fields? Xrays? (note: laptops currently survive airport Xrays, but I'm clueless as to how this happens and whether it's something that eventually will catch up with data stored on hard drives.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
WARNING: Anti-Microsoft comment below. If you hate such commentary, stop reading now. I don't want to hear the needless whinning about all the Anti-Microsoft commentary. Guess what? This is Slashdot! It's part of the culture here. Do go preaching Atheism in church! Don't go accusing Slashdot of being unbiased! Simple right?
---Commentary begins---
My knee-jerk reaction to this is that this type of RAM will not compatible with any version of Windows. Microsoft Windows, by Microsoft's explicit advice, often requires a reboot (memory clearing) of the machine upon which the operating system is loaded. Very often, powering off is used as opposed to a simply "reboot" or "reset" since memory is sometimes retained after an instantaneous restart. Cold booting is often preferred and recommended. (Interestingly, Microsoft also recommends periodic re-installation of the operating system after formatting the drive... apparently, it's not only system RAM that is prone to corruption.)
While it can be said that this is true of all PC operating systems, it can more accurately be said
that it's "less true" of other PC operating systems.
Essentially, since Windows relies on the "clean machine" approach to efficient running, this memory technology is unsuitable for use with Windows without a "clear memory" switch.
Pushing forward with the notion of "clean hard drives" wouldn't it be great if Windows Hard Drives came with an instant re-format feature?
A teaching assistant (grad student) at my University was hired by the National Institute of Standards after graduation to work on quantum computing methods. According to him, they have a pretty complete theory, and have obtained some fairly large grants to actually put that theory to work. Some of the things he talked about sounded really incredible.
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I found a Scientific American article from 1996 which details some of the their work, as well as the work of others, plus a lot of useful links.
http://www.sciam.com/explorations/091696explora
I remember first reading about using electron spin in quantum computing way back in 1994, in a NY times science edition.
Not really. It's basically as binary as traditional computing
Yes, but this could open the door to the possibility of trinary computing. If circuit technology becomes "spintronically" advanced, then instead of the normal two state system (on and off) there would be three states: off, on(up), and on(down). Of course, off would still be a single state, because there is no spoon... I mean, spin... without the electron. :)
Measurement of the spin-polarization was done through Point-Contact Andreev Reflection (PCAR) measurements at the interface of a superconductor/ferromagnetic. Ie, at the interface between the CrO2 crystal and a sharp-tipped lead superconductor in the vicinity of 4K (maybe colder).
For more info, see my other post further down on this slashdot article.
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