Current PC hard drives require more than a million atoms per
bit, but researchers have now created a single memory storage
bit using just 12 atoms “Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and
retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms,
pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to
the edge of what is possible,” reads the press release. The
findings could help lead to a new class of nanomaterials for a
generation of memory chips and disk drives that will not only
have greater capabilities than the current silicon-based
computers but will consume significantly less power. And they
may offer a new direction for research in quantum computing.
Andreas Heinrich, Physicist at IBM Research, explains more: “The
chip industry will continue its pursuit of incremental scaling
in semiconductor technology but, as components continue to
shrink, the march continues to the inevitable end point: the
atom,” Heinrich says. To put this new breakthrough into context,
IBM says that the completed technol