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Physicists Improve Spin Information Storage

Posted by Soulskill on from the is-it-the-future-yet dept.

schliz writes "Researchers have made headway into developing spintronic RAM by successfully transferring spin information from an electron to a more robust atomic nucleus and accessing the information 2,000 times in 100 seconds before it decayed (abstract). The demonstration was conducted using phosphorus-doped silicon in a highly magnetized, low-temperature environment (8.59 Tesla, -269.5 degrees Celsius). Other researchers have achieved spin lifetimes of 30 hours in a weaker magnetic field (0.3 Tesla)."

10 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Why not use Kelvin here? by SgtKeeling · · Score: 4, Insightful

    -269.5 degrees Celsius

    This seems to me like a very appropriate time to use Kelvin. For anyone interested, this is 3.65 degrees Kelvin.

    1. Re:Why not use Kelvin here? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 2

      And 8.5 Teslas is approximately 2 to 3 times the magnetic field strength of a typical MRI machine, so this technology isn't quite ready for cell phones yet.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:Why not use Kelvin here? by samsanas · · Score: 2

      They're just Kelvin, not "degrees Kelvin".

    3. Re:Why not use Kelvin here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is NEVER appropriate to use Rankine.

  2. Formatting Issue, anyone? by mistapotta · · Score: 2

    ... environment (8.59 Tesla, -
    269.5 degrees Celsius)...

    Poor choice of Line Feed location. I didn't see the negative before. 269.5 C didn't seem that bad.

  3. Re:Does this mean... by ShakaUVM · · Score: 3, Funny

    At long last, the Fox network can successfully document and store (some of) the enormous amounts of spin generated by its commentators. What I want to know is when will the spin^2 ram be ready so we can start working on the O'Reilly spin/spin found in his "spin* free zone"

    Well, a spin-free (spin 0) particle would obviously be a Higgs Boson.

    Therefore O'Reilly is the source of inertia, and has yet to be found in France or Switzerland.

  4. Re:Requires insanely cold temps? by clone52431 · · Score: 2

    Building a really big electromagnet requires superconducting materials because of the immense amount of current required to generate the electric field. If the material wasn’t a superconductor, the resistance would generate so much heat that it would burn up.

    --
    Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
  5. Re:Requires insanely cold temps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Subatomic things tend to move around when they get warm. Cooling them keeps them where they're put, it's easier to find them that way.

  6. Re:Requires insanely cold temps? by grimJester · · Score: 3, Informative

    At least some of those are because quantum decoherence happens faster when temperature rises. The time before quantum behavior turns into normal classical behavior is inversely proportional to temperature in Kelvin. (I tried to find something sane on Wikipedia, but all relevant articles seem to be written for experts...)

    A more general explanation could be that new stuff happens at very low energies and very high energies compared to what we're used to. Cold is just low energy.

  7. Re:Requires insanely cold temps? by frozentier · · Score: 2

    Subatomic things tend to move around when they get warm.

    The amount that subatomic things more around is the definition of warmth.