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IBM Develops Technology That Could Store Data In Atoms

Posted by Zonk on from the wee-little-pcs dept.

InfoWorldMike passed us a link to a story at his site about a way to perform computer functions on the atomic level. IBM has pioneered the process at their Almaden Research lab in California. Essentially, researchers detect 'magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction'. Since the process allows the detection of the 'direction' individual atoms are facing, this is the first step towards the ones and zeroes used in binary. "In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science.The new technologies are at least 10 years from being used for components in commercial products, but the discoveries will allow scientists to take a large step forward in their quest to replace silicon, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon."

2 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. really crappy sci fi by netsavior · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I read really crappy sci-fi one time where humans moved to more and more obscure and technical means to store data, untill eventually they were making notches in neutrons. Since the technology to read/write it was so expensive, they just centralized it. The machine broke and all the data needed to fix it was stored on a few atoms in a vault with no way to read it.

    I know it is "dimestore" technology alarmist camp, but I thought it was funny that this story is comming true. Anyone know the name of this story??

  2. dadgummit by schwaang · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember when Bubble memory was the next big thing.
    We had 16K RAM and we liked it.