IBM takes big step in computing with data on a single atom

A hard drive should usually require about 100,000 atoms to store a single bit of data, but IBM said last week, it has found a way to store data on a single atom.

IBM’s Almaden laboratory in San Jose, California, US, played host to a team of researchers who have been able to write and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism. The team claims this is the time it is done.

However, according to Pcworld.com other scientists have used single atoms for storage before, including in experimental devices that used atoms’ location to store data. But magnetic storage, the technique already used in tapes, disk drives, and flash, has the advantage of being solid state, so it does not require moving atoms around.

IBM’s research which is published in the journal Nature, employs a single atom of the element holmium carefully placed on a surface of magnesium oxide. A special-purpose microscope uses a tiny amount of electrical current to flip the atom’s orientation one way or the other, corresponding to writing a 1 or 0. The researchers then read the data by measuring the atom’s electromagnetic properties.

The development could lead to storage that is hundred times denser than anything available today. For instance, it may be able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit according to the company. Much denser storage can also mean smaller smartphone, laptops and even data centres.

It could also mean a smartwatch, glasses or ring is capable of carrying all your personal data, or businesses could keep potentially useful information they were not previously able to preserve because they could not afford it.

Ability to preserve lots of information in atomic-level storage will also be important for the development of artificial intelligence. But all of that may not be happening immediately.

“This work is not product development, but rather it is basic research intended to develop tools and understanding of what happens as we miniaturize devices down toward the ultimate limit of individual atom. We are starting at individual atoms, and building up from there to invent new information technologies,” Chris Lutz, IBM researcher said.

Lutz also noted that the team was only hoping to achieve the maximum density. Until now, no one knew how many atoms it would take to build a reliable magnetic memory bit. From the team’s experiment the answer is 1.

“We plan to explore atoms of other elements, clusters of atoms, and small molecules as candidate magnetic bits,” Lutz said.