Slashdot Mirror
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."
As an optimist myself I would have said that it was 10 atoms thin!
I store data using just a pencil, paper, and some tape. I knew there was a way. Oh wait...
This could be a real boon to space exploration. Temperature extremes and radiation are two of the most common problems that must be dealt with when designing exploratory vehicles. This could simplify things greatly.
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
As per wikipedia,
Diameter range: 62 pm (He) to 520 pm (Cs) (data page)
Atom @ Wikipedia
It seems that the "thickness" of an atom varies. I've never understood why it is used as a unit of measure.
Budweiser?
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.
no more microwaving your hard drive to aid in data destruction.
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.
I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
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
"...we grow it from the vapor phase..."
Literally, vaporware.
Thank god I didn't invest in SSD. Those are so obsolete.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
the RIAA et al will be wanting royalties off every pencil sold and Canada will have a pencil tax?
Reading the articles, it appears the size is nice, but it isn't the biggest deal here. They're projecting a bit smaller than 10nm, which is twice as small as next-generation flash drives that "projections show ... will reach its limit of 20nm by around 2012."
The biggest deal here seems to be power management.
What distinguishes graphene from other next-generation memories is the on-off power ratio - the amount of juice a circuit holds when it's on, as opposed to off. "It's huge - a million-to-one," said Tour. "Phase change memory, the other thing the industry is considering, runs at 10-to-1. That means the 'off' state holds, say, one-tenth the amount of electrical current than the 'on' state."
Current tends to leak from an "off" that's holding a charge. "That means in a 10-by-10 grid, 10 'offs' would leak enough to look like they were 'on.' With our method, it would take a million 'offs' in a line to look like 'on,'" he said. "So this is big. It allows us to make a much larger array."
holy crap! I am setting up a graphite memory chip manufacturing plant at home tonight. I just need to stop by staples and pick up some supplies !
Make sure to go to the right Staples. The article says you need 10 thick Adams to get a flash.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You're doing it wrong, you should have counted from zero.
Interesting. That is how artificial diamonds are formed too... vapor forming around a diamond seed in a vacuum chamber.
-- http://ninthagenda.com/
after 10 seconds of microwaving.
Overkill; five or six seconds are almost always enough to make a smoking mess out of most anything worth putting in there, but only when the item in question should never be microwaved in the first place(tm).
Which is to say; "food (and so on) should be taken to, at least eleven(tm) , (..and possibly beyond.)
- You're welcome.
Graphene has been studied extensively in the last few years. Carbon Nanotubes were on the rise (which are just rolled up sheets of single layer graphite) but the current difficulties to manipulate those to create devices staggered their advance. Graphene ( or Graphite for that matter) is a little easier to manage because it's like a 2 -D sheet and it can be laid/printed off a substrate more easily.
The current major problem of graphene is the lack of a sizable band-gap which is typically required for semiconductor modulation. We may see a breakthrough in the following years if people figure out a way to overcome this barrier.
There's plenty of room at the bottom! Richard P. Feynmann
Finally, memory you can erase.
So few memristor comparisons.
I wonder if that means I can get a heap of this and create a stack now...
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Securely destroying such a drive before disposing of it may be a challenge...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes, and they're called stone tablets. Luckily, computer researchers seem to be picking up on this, now that they're using graphite. Unfortunately it sounds like "etched in stone" will soon mean "subject to formatting".
"...and withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius and radiation that would make solid-state disk memory disintegrate."
Hooray! At last I'll be able to get a fail-proof SSD in case of battery meltdown in my Sony laptop.
@neonux
...after reading the article I'm still wondering what the storage mechanism is.
OK, so it's made of graphene, but how does it remember anything, and how do you read and write it? It's like launching a new kind of engine, and only specifying what it's made of.
Anyone got a more detailed link?
We are actually given a lot more hints about how the main competitor works, albeit only by virtue of its name, not journalistic thoroughness.
sudo ergo sum
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.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
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!
Still making stuff multiple atoms thick? What's next, using bricks?
So does John Wayne.
In one incident, Bond bet Wayne that they could stand on opposite sides of a newspaper and Wayne wouldn't be able to hit him. Bond set a sheet of newspaper down in a doorway, Wayne stood on one end, and Bond slammed the door in his face, shouting "Try and hit me now!" Wayne responded by sending his fist through the door, flooring Bond (and winning the bet).
I drank what? -- Socrates