Store Data on Individual Atoms

We Can Now Store Data on Individual Atoms

Scientists at IBM use single atoms to store the 1s and 0s of computer code in the most compact way ever achieved.

 
By Avery Thompson

Scientists at IBM have figured out at a way to encode data onto a single atom, which is the most compact information storage ever achieved. Their results are published in a paper in the journal Nature.

Space on our digital devices is at a premium. Running out of storage space because of too many pictures happens all too often, but it's difficult to make storage devices that are dense enough for modern life. As digital storage keeps getting smaller, the basic unit of information storage keeps shrinking as well. The amount of atoms required to store data keeps getting smaller, and inevitably storing a single bit will someday only require a single atom.

That's exactly what the IBM researchers have managed to demonstrate with their new storage technique. They used holmium atoms embedded on a magnesium oxide base and manipulated the atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope. This allowed them to encode data on those atoms and then read that same data later.

The team used holmium atoms because they're highly magnetic, and the scanning tunneling microscope can use that magnetism to detect the atoms' orientation. By running a low voltage of about 75 millivolts through the atoms, the microscope can detect whether the atoms are facing up or down.

Using a slightly larger voltage—around 150 millivolts—the microscope can actually change the orientation of an atom, turning an atom from face-up to face-down or vice-versa. In this way, the researchers could encode binary data, 1s and 0s, into the individual atoms.

The researchers demonstrated that their technique works by placing two holmium atoms next to each other and encoding them with all four possible combinations—00, 01, 10, 11—and retrieving them hours later. The researchers didn't try storing data for longer than that, but suspect that longer storage should be achievable with a better process or different materials.

And of course, it will be a long time before this tech, or something like it, makes its way into your laptop. Scanning tunneling microscopes are very large, expensive machines, and the holmium is too delicate to be used outside the lab. Still, this is an impressive achievement, and someday you might be storing your favorite music or vacation photos on individual atoms.