IBM fits a bit on an atom, eyeing ever-smaller devices

Researchers at IBM’s Almaden lab in San Jose, California, have written and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism, a feat they say is a world first. It could lead to storage that’s hundreds of times denser than anything available now, able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit card, the company says.

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cool, one atom, one bit

then one electron, one bit

and so on

1 quark one bit

etc

You’ve hidden the death star plans

Yes The death star plans are stored and hiding on a rebel anti neutrino masquerading as a jedi quark hiding amongst quantum foam particles popping in and out of space in the asteroid belt way past Endor, way way past Endor.

So, you can find them again, right?

easy, should be, once we’ve found it.

storing 1 bit on one atom is a lot better than storing 1 bit on ten thousand atoms

Tau.Neutrino said:

storing 1 bit on one atom is a lot better than storing 1 bit on ten thousand atoms

Depends how reliably and quickly you can access the bit.

Tau.Neutrino said:

IBM fits a bit on an atom, eyeing ever-smaller devices

Researchers at IBM’s Almaden lab in San Jose, California, have written and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism, a feat they say is a world first. It could lead to storage that’s hundreds of times denser than anything available now, able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit card, the company says.

more…

cool, one atom, one bit

then one electron, one bit

and so on

1 quark one bit

etc

That’s a teensy bit overoptimistic.

One atom one bit was proved back in 1989 when IBM scientists in demonstrated of a technology capable of manipulating individual atoms. The present one is different in that it uses magnetism of a single atom.

One electron one bit. Seems reasonable.

One electron many bits. I don’t see any fundamental reason why that can’t be possible.

One quark one bit. No. Too difficult: protons, neutrons and electrons are about all that can be manipulated easily. Not even muons. I did once give some thought to the possibility of using muons, for example muons can replace electrons in an atom to give muonic hydrogen and muonic deuterium, and in muonium some antimuons replace protons in a hydrogen atom. But muons are too difficult to produce and die too fast, in 2.2 microseconds.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

storing 1 bit on one atom is a lot better than storing 1 bit on ten thousand atoms

Depends how reliably and quickly you can access the bit.

around 550MB/s read write speeds
https://www.lifewire.com/intel-ssd-600p-512gb-m2-4092529

around 5Gbps read write speeds
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2987956/solid-state-drives/intel-samsung-launch-their-fastest-ssds-with-up-to-5gbps-speeds.html

research lab speeds on prototypes would even be faster