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Diamonds Used To Increase Density, Performance of Phase-Change Memory
Lucas123 writes "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have shown they can increase the density, performance and the durability of phase-change memory (PSM) by using diamonds to change the base alloy material. Instead of using the more typical method of applying heat to the alloy to change its state from amorphous to crystalline, thereby laying down bits in the material, the researchers used pressure from diamond-tipped tools. Using pressure versus heat allowed them to slow down the change in order to produce many varying states allowing more data to be stored on the alloy. 'This phase-change memory is more stable than the material used in current flash drives. It works 100 times faster and is rewritable millions of times,' said the study's lead author, Ming Xu, a doctoral student at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. 'Within about five years, it could also be used to replace hard drives in computers and give them more memory.'"
Seriously. Who didn't already suspect diamonds would increase the performance of phase change memory?
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Discounting the fact that simply because the researchers are not named "John" and "Sally" they must not be American... Contemporary American society does not value education in general and have no respect for science, engineering and R&D. Accordingly we are producing less scientists and engineers. We are investing less into long term R&D on both the public and private sector which further depresses the draw of talent into the fields.
So, I would expect this trend to continue until businesses can stop looking at the next quarter and start looking 10-20+ years down the road. The federal government on the other hand needs to realize that funding blue sky research brings us things like the Internet and we could use more of that too...
In closing we are pretty much hosed as long as we value reality tv, athletics and wealth more than discovery, knowledge and the common good.
Good luck!
- anon
One out of three isn't bad. Okay, so SSDs haven't completely replaced magnetic media, but in some contexts, they have. Nobody carries around floppies these days, and laptops are clearly heading in that direction, too.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The U.S. population is about 13% foreign-born, which is pretty high. Lower than Canada (19%), but higher than most other countries. For example, only 9% of the UK population is foreign-born, 4% of the Italian population, 2% of the Japanese population, and... 0.3% of the Chinese population.
It's not necessarily actually easy to get into the U.S., but overall, a lot of people do so anyway. And unlike many other countries, the U.S. has automatic citizenship from birth, which means any offspring of the foreign-born population (a full 1/8 of the country!) are automatically citizens, which is a much friendlier path to citizenship than most countries have.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Gem grade consumer diamonds can be created in the lab as well. Up to 25 carats has been done, if memory serves me. There are tell tale signs usually, although I won't call them differences. Those diamonds still are diamonds, but tend to fluoresce in ways that mined diamonds would only do when they are a specific color variation like blue diamonds. Also, the labs are playing ball with the mining cartels and making sure that they inscribe serial numbers on their stones, so you know it was lab created.
Long story short, if there was a need to suddenly have to produce a lot of gem quality diamonds to save the Earth or something, you wouldn't have to rely on DeBeers to mine them for you. They wouldn't necessarily be cheap, but they would be a hell of a lot less expensive than current diamond prices.