1 Bit Storage With Just 12 Atoms - IBM's Exemplary Achievement!

Researchers at IBM have created a single bit memory storage using only 12 atoms. In modern devices, this number is around a million! Company said in an announcement that they used an unconventional concept of anti-ferromagnetism to make the storage at least 100 times denser than today’s memory devices.
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As shown in the image IBM used two rows of six iron atoms each on copper platform. Today’s memory devices use magnetic storage where all the iron atoms are aligned with same magnetic spin, resulting in greater space between them. IBM did the opposite of that, i.e. they used atoms with contrary magnetization to hold them together tightly. Andreas Henrich, the lead investigator into atomic storage at IBM research, published #-Link-Snipped-# detailing the whole method. Quoting Moore’s Law Henrich said, “The Moore’s Law drives the industry to shrunk down the components, keeping the basic concepts same and the concept of magnetic data storage hasn’t changed over the past 20 years.” He also pointed out that the end result of Moore’s Law is single atom and that’s where they come in.
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The researchers combined 96 atoms of this type together, to store a byte. After that the word "THINK" was stored. According to IBM, it took 480 atoms. The experiment was conducted at very low temperature of about 1 degree Kelvin (-227 degree Centigrade). The low temperature helped to keep the bytes stable. The researchers said that at the room temperature, this method can be implemented using around 150 atoms. Here is the video of the concept, showcasing how big the breakthrough is:



This method will take time to be commercially available, but this kind of breakthrough, even after 5-10 years, can be a trend changing deal. For now, its just part of the research and we hope that it will be fully developed and available soon.

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