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Scientists Perfect Technique To Create Most Dense, Solid-State Memory in History that Could Soon Exceed the Capabilities of Current Hard Drives By 1,000 Times (newatlas.com)
New submitter weedjams shares a report: Scientists at the University of Alberta have demonstrated a new data storage technique that stores zeroes and ones by the presence (or absence) of individual hydrogen atoms. The resulting storage density is an unparalleled 1.2 petabits per square inch -- 1,000 times greater than current hard disk and solid state drives, and 100 times greater than Blu-rays. The researchers, led by PhD student Roshan Achal and physics professor Robert Wolkow, built on a technique previously developed by Walkow that used the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to remove or replace individual hydrogen atoms resting on a silicon substrate.
The inconceivably small dimensions (a hydrogen atom is only half a nanometer in diameter) allow for an astounding data storage density of 1.1 petabits (138 terabytes) per square inch. By comparison, a Blu-ray disk can "only" store about 12 terabits of data in the same area (one hundredth the data density), while both traditional magnetic hard drives and solid-state drives store somewhere in the region of 1.5 terabits per square inch (a thousandth of the density). This development, says Achal, could allow you to store the entire iTunes library of 45 million songs on the surface of a US quarter-dollar coin.
Achal and his team demoed the technology by creating a 192-bit cell, which they used to store a simple rendition of the Super Mario Bros video game theme song. To show the rewrite capabilities, the scientists also created an 8-bit memory cell which they used to store the letters of the alphabet one by one, represented via their respective ASCII code. Further reading: ScienceDaily, and Nature.
The inconceivably small dimensions (a hydrogen atom is only half a nanometer in diameter) allow for an astounding data storage density of 1.1 petabits (138 terabytes) per square inch. By comparison, a Blu-ray disk can "only" store about 12 terabits of data in the same area (one hundredth the data density), while both traditional magnetic hard drives and solid-state drives store somewhere in the region of 1.5 terabits per square inch (a thousandth of the density). This development, says Achal, could allow you to store the entire iTunes library of 45 million songs on the surface of a US quarter-dollar coin.
Achal and his team demoed the technology by creating a 192-bit cell, which they used to store a simple rendition of the Super Mario Bros video game theme song. To show the rewrite capabilities, the scientists also created an 8-bit memory cell which they used to store the letters of the alphabet one by one, represented via their respective ASCII code. Further reading: ScienceDaily, and Nature.
As neat as this news is, it's going to just remain a curiosity. I mean, there have been hundreds of similar news over the years and how many of those have actually materialized into a useful product? A tiny, miniscule fraction, that's how many.
I'll get excited once there's something that seems like it might actually make it into the market as a product I might one day be able to afford, but this ain't that.
Scientists at the University of Alberta have demonstrated a new data storage technique that stores zeroes and ones by the presence (or absence) of individual hydrogen atoms
In other words a exotic design that barely works in the lab, with no chance of working in the real world. But give us 20 years and we might have something.
Didn't we hear the same thing about some holographic crystal storage 20 years ago?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
a technique previously developed by Walkow that used the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to remove or replace individual hydrogen atoms resting on a silicon substrate.
Wow, a chip the size of my thumbnail that can hold 2.8 LOCs!
Too bad the reader will be the size of an 80's Dell desktop.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The described procedure is not easily scaled. It has been known for a long time that you could push individual atoms around with a needle, at least 10 years ago IBM produced an IBM logo made of individual atoms. This sets a theoretical record, for densest relatively static medium. I guess subatomic and field versions might go smaller.
But this is not at all about practical storage. To have that, you don't only need a small medium, you need a way to address large amounts of it efficiently, and access the addressed bits to read or write them.
Bruce Perens.
20 years is a more likely timeline.
The scientists involved here said "5-10 years with proper funding", which is a science euphemism for "cover my next funding cycle and then we will see". If the technology is viable and there aren't any serious unexpected hurdles to overcome, expect it to be 20 years by the time it hits the market.
The thing that gets my goat is the headline *Scientists Perfect Technique* when that is not at all what they have done. Its a demonstration of what _might_ be possible given a huge amount of R&D and Im pretty sure these particular scientists did not claim to have perfected anything. It would have been fine to introduce the subject with any hyperbole at all and would have still been exciting to read...