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Individual Atom Memory Created

Posted by chrisd on from the we're-all-individuals dept.

azav writes "University of Wisconsin-Madison Scientists have created "atomic scale" memory using individual atoms of Silicon." A cool photo can be found on the site as well.

8 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Bah! by DarkHelmet · · Score: 5, Funny
    University of Wisconsin-Madison Scientists have created "atomic scale" memory using individual atoms of Silicon." A cool photo can be found on the site as well.

    Single atom memory? How stable do they REALLY expect that to be?

    Ha! What's the name of the technology? Alzheimer's Access Memory?

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  2. What the picture says... by Kredal · · Score: 5, Funny

    "If you can read this, you're WAAAY too close!"

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  3. Re:It a hoax... by Kredal · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a matter of fact, yes.

    Not all atoms are the same size. Remember what you learned about atomic weights?

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  4. This has more details by jukal · · Score: 5, Informative
    The article links to this article which describes better how it actually works.

    "Reading the memory consists of a simple, one-dimensional scan, because it is self-formatted into precise tracks. There is no need to search in two dimensions for the location of a bit. The signal is highly predictable since all atoms have the same shape and occur on well-defined lattice sites. That allows for a high level of filtering and error correction"

    "Writing is more difficult. While atoms can be positioned controllably at liquid helium temperature, that is much harder to achieve that at room temperature"

  5. Feynman failed to anticipate MS Word by Subcarrier · · Score: 4, Funny

    In 1959, physics icon Richard Feynman predicted that all the words written in the history of the world could be contained in a cube of material one two-hundredths of an inch wide.

    And then we'd need a new search engine just to find the damn thing.

    Fortunately, the text would probably be stored in the innovative MS Word format, which guarantees that the physical size of the required storage capacity will remain constant over time, no matter what the information density of the storage medium.

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  6. Atom walks into the bar. by Typingsux · · Score: 4, Funny
    Says to the bartender "I think I lost an electron"

    Bartender replies "Are you sure?"

    Atom thinks for a second: "Yea I'm positive."

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    The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
  7. FLT by Alsee · · Score: 4, Funny

    I found a remarkable proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but this 512 terabyte memory cube is too small to contain it.

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  8. Re:what was that.. by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
    about moore's law?

    And a brick wall?

    Methinks there is no higher density than bit-per-atom.

    6.02x10^23 Kb ought to be enough for anyone.