Atomic memory is a concept that has been theorized since 1959.
Physicist Richard Feynman then said that data could potentially be stored by arranging atoms in a particular order. He said that atomic memory could have the potential to store every word ever written in a .10 millimeter-wide cubic space. Storing a bit of data on a single atom could save an incredible amount of space – there are ten million billion atoms in a grain of sand.
This month, a study published in the Nature Nanotechnology journal presented a major breakthrough in atomic memory. A group of nano-scientists from the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain has discovered a way to store and rewrite data 500 times more efficiently than the best hard drives available, according to NPR.
Physicist Sander Otte and his team used 8,000 atoms to record the entire text of the 1959 call for atomic memory research by Feynman. From NPR:
…it’s a first in several ways. For one, it’s the first atomic-level storage device capable of holding a whole paragraph of text.
A number of researchers have been able to reposition atoms one at a time to make patterns, but Otte’s group is the first to show that the process can be “automated and sped up enough to write a thousand characters of information,” says Chris Lutz at IBM Research, who also was not involved with the study.
According to Lutz, IBM researchers had previously managed only to reposition 12 atoms. Loth says his lab typically deals only with 10 to 20 atoms at a time.
Instead of arranging atoms on empty surfaces, a strategy atomic memory has used for some time, Otte’s team manipulated the empty spaces.
Atomic memory won’t be in use any time soon. It would take a year and a half to load a three-minute song as it stands now, and the devices must be operated at -320 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, it’s a proof of concept that could lead to consumer-ready atomic memory devices in the future.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but if things keep moving forward with atomic memory every fact ever known about Rome could be stored in a speck of dust.
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