Researchers Create Graphite Memory 10 Atoms Thick

CWmike writes "Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated a new data storage medium made out of a layer of graphite only 10 atoms thick. The technology could potentially provide many times the capacity of current flash memory and withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius and radiation that would make solid-state disk memory disintegrate. 'Though we grow it from the vapor phase, this material [graphene] is just like graphite in a pencil. You slide these right off the end of your pencil onto paper. If you were to place Scotch tape over it and pull up, you can sometimes pull up as small as one sheet of graphene. It is a little under 1 nanometer thick,' Professor James Tour said."

Comments

Pessimists?

[Warll]

As an optimist myself I would have said that it was 10 atoms thin!

Re:Pessimists?

[aztracker1]

I was told thicker is better... ;)

Re:Pessimists?

[NerdyLove]

More to love :-)

Re:Pessimists?

[Mozk]

When cornered into a room by ninjas with nothing separating you from them but a door of wood, yes, thicker is better, but you will die regardless.

Re:Pessimists?

[Myrddin Wyllt]

I'm not sure thicker is better. I remember hearing that churches in northern England replaced their super-thick oak doors with thinner planks riveted together in a cross-ply design, as this provided better protection against the axes of marauding Vikings.

Of course, Ninjas are a different proposition, and five minutes googling gives me no citation for the monastic plywood theory, so perhaps direct experiment is the only way to settle this one - just make sure you have plenty of emergency Pirates on hand for back-up and it should be safe enough.

Finally..

[jmerlin]

I store data using just a pencil, paper, and some tape. I knew there was a way. Oh wait...

Re:Finally..

[Anonymous Coward]

Compression.

You fold the paper in half, and then tape the ends. Voila! Same information, half the size!

Re:Finally..

[Todd Fisher]

Yeah but you can only do that 8 times. Pfft some technology!

Re:Finally..

[vux984]

(Also, about 37 foldings of it would make the paper so high to reach the moon).

No problem. Just bend the resulting column in half 37 times.

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

Re:Finally..

[setagllib]

Every time you use an unspecified unit as the base in an exponential function, baby Newton cries.

Re:piss

[Anonymous Coward]

Budweiser?

Who needs new graphite memory?

[bugnuts]

You slide these right off the end of your pencil onto paper.

You know, pencils make pretty good r/w memory, too, although the number of r/w cycles is limited.

Re:Who needs new graphite memory?

[jmerlin]

Who knew? The most advanced memory created yet was invented far before the computer...

Re:Who needs new graphite memory?

[revoldub]

Who would have thought, thousands of years later, thousands of advancements in technology, and we're back to writing on rocks.

Re:Who needs new graphite memory?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, pencils make pretty good r/w memory, too, although the number of r/w cycles is limited.

Please explain to me how my pencil can do the read part of r/w memory.

Well look at you, you're all the fun at parties, aren't you?

So....

[Antony-Kyre]

no more microwaving your hard drive to aid in data destruction.

Re:So....

[Firehed]

I'm pretty sure that microwaving your hard drive only aids in microwave destruction.

Graphene for write-only memory

[gluefish]

The problem with using Graphene for write-only memory is that you need Pink Latexene to delete it. Fortunately they've discovered how to make extremely tiny cylinders of Pink Latexene, mounted on the end of yellow wooden sticks, to do such work. The combination of the graphene on one end of the stick and the pink cylinder on the other promises to allow nearly unlimited read-write capabilities, for mere pennies, distributed easily worldwide.

Graphene balloons

[graft]

For those who missed it, since it's not linked, a relevant story about researchers creating atom-thick graphene balloons that can hold several atmospheres of pressure. Made with Scotch tape. Yowza! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/08/192227&from=rss

Vaporware

[BlackSabbath]

"...we grow it from the vapor phase..."

Literally, vaporware.

Phew!

[powerslave12r]

Thank god I didn't invest in SSD. Those are so obsolete.

I guess soon

[Anonymous Coward]

the RIAA et al will be wanting royalties off every pencil sold and Canada will have a pencil tax?

Re:So if I cons up an 11 atom list ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're doing it wrong, you should have counted from zero.

Re:10 Atoms thick?

[maglor_83]

Which is why everything should be measured in Libraries of Congress.

Re:Space Exploration

[SEWilco]

Yeah, we can use the graphene in space if it survives the X-rays from the tape.

Finally...

[NotPeteMcCabe]

Finally, memory you can erase.

Re:How would you dispose of such a thing?

[3.5 stripes]

Not really, you'll just need to try and take a very important test with it.. it'll break almost immediately..

Re:Ninjas?

[aywwts4]

When cornered into a room by ninjas with nothing separating you from them but a door of wood, yes, thicker is better, but you will die regardless.

I think you are confusing ninjas with zombies, zombies have thick wood door shredding powers while a ninja is already in the room with you.

It doesn't matter - Moore's Law ended this week.

[RecycledElectrons]

Get over it. There will be no faster computers now that the US Govt has bailed out the DRAM industry. Innovation like this is illegal!