* IBM unveils technology to make more dense storage components
IBM researchers last week unveiled two nanotechnology projects that could lead to more scalable and dense disk drives and chips.
Information about these projects, which focus on devices built from atoms or molecules and are far from becoming products, will be published in the journal Science.
The first project describes progress in probing a property called magnetic anisotropy in individual atoms. (According to the Free Dictionary anisotropy is the property of being anisotropic or having a different value when measured in different directions.) Anisotropy is an important property for data storage because it determines whether or not a magnet can maintain a specific orientation.
Researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to manipulate individual atoms and arranged them on a specially prepared copper surface. They then determined the orientation and strength of the magnetic anisotropy of the individual iron atoms. This in turn allows the magnet to represent either a 1 or 0 — the basis for storing data in computers.
No researchers ever before have been able to measure the magnetic anisotropy of an atom. Further research within IBM may make it possible to build structures consisting of small clusters of atoms that could store magnetic information. This nanotechnology breakthrough could result in the entire contents of YouTube being stored on a device the size of an iPod.
Reporting on the second project, IBM unveiled a switch consisting of a single molecule that can operate without disrupting the molecule’s outer frame. This research could result in components that are smaller, faster and more energy efficient than today’s computer chips and memory devices.
Researchers also demonstrated that atoms inside one molecule can be used to switch atoms in an adjacent molecule on and off, representing a rudimentary logic element. This capability has been demonstrated before within a single molecule, but the molecules would change shape when switching, and thus be unsuitable for building logic gates for computer chips or memory elements.
More information on these nanotechnology advances is available here.
