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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.
Record video of everything you say and do in your entire life.
They've stored 192 bits in a lab, and they're claiming that all of iTunes could fit on a quarter "soon?" Are they also selling bridges?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Imagine, more porn than one can possibly watch in a lifetime in the palm of my hand
I really don't want to think about the palm of your hand right now.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Cool tech if they can make it an actual product but I am getting hung up on their storage density of Blu-ray disks. Since when can a Blu-ray disk store 12 terabits of data per square inch? As far as I am aware the largest disks store 128GB of data on a what my quick back of the envelop calculations show to be around 12 square inches.
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.
I've heard about these techniques before. Atomic Force Microscopes, DNA storage, they all have the same problems. Incredible storage densities but the ability to read and write quickly is missing.
In order to commercialize this technology you have to overcome the bottleneck of terrible I/O speeds. Oh, and you need to incorporate an atomic microscope into your storage device. That is not great for commercialization prospects.
Short of that, these storage systems are only good for offline data storage, and situations where exceptionally high density must be achieved at any cost.
It will be cheaper to have the contents of the internet delivered to your house via snail mail once a week.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
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Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
Actually, A hydrogen atom is about 0.1 nm in diameter
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.
I would agree with "unexpected," because many do not know that the University of Alberta hosts the Canadian National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT). Also many are not aware that Robert Wolkow entered the Guinness Book of Records with the "Sharpest Object Ever Made": https://www.ualberta.ca/newtra... But it is the practical translation of this new technology into nanomanufacturing that will make this computer memory revolution possible: https://www.ualberta.ca/scienc... Now, the University of Alberta will not only be know for being the birthplace of Deepmind's AlphaGo, but also for starting the nanomanufacturing revolution.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my disk?
I thought the article was light on information until I watched the embedded video. Wow.
1989... 29 years ago.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Of course, the cells will be larger than 192 bits; I only used that number as it's what they've achieved at this moment.
For reference, parallelization is the same trick used by today's fastest flash-based SSDs. Are those the size of a house?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.