In recent years, we have seen significant progress in storage density. 60 TB SSD to microSD cards going as high as 1-2 terabytes.
IBM has made a breakthrough in storage technology. Until now, the information is stored as bits occupying up to 100,000 atoms. Meaning 1 bit carried up to 100,000 atoms of physical space.
IBM has managed to store each bit on individual atoms, so that data storage is used more efficiently in the process with its new atomic hard disk technology.
All iTunes data on a credit card-sized drive
In theory, this means that the size of today's hard drives decrease by 100,000 times. However, we are not yet there. According to IBM, the entire iTunes catalog (about 35 million songs) can be stored on an atomic hard drive the size of a credit card.
The scientists that managed to achieve this feat used holmium atoms placed on top of magnesium oxide to maintain the magnetic poles of atoms stable. Magnesium oxide also prevents magnets from affecting the magnetic poles of holmium atoms.
How it works?
The bits are stored as simple "on" or "off" states. On the atomic hard drive, the magnetic poles of atoms can be used for this purpose as well.
To write information to this storage system, you must apply electrical current through a microscopic needle to change the orientation of the magnetic poles.
To read the information of this system you will have to measure the magnetic current of individual atoms which is different depending on the orientation of the magnetic pole of the atoms.
This technology is purely experimental at this time; it uses a cooled liquid nitrogen, tunneling electron microscope to work. This means that you will not see the hard drive the size of a thumb tack anytime soon.
If only one could afford a tunneling electron microscope to see what is happening here at a sub-atomic level.
Via Engadget
0 comments:
Post a Comment