CAPSLOCKSTUCK
Spaced Out Lunar Tick
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2013
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- llaregguB...WALES
| System Name | Party On |
|---|---|
| Processor | Xeon w 3520 |
| Motherboard | DFI Lanparty |
| Cooling | Big tower thing |
| Memory | 6 gb Ballistix Tracer |
| Video Card(s) | HD 7970 |
| Case | a plank of wood |
| Audio Device(s) | seperate amp and 6 big speakers |
| Power Supply | Corsair |
| Mouse | cheap |
| Keyboard | under going restoration |
The breakthrough builds on 35 years of nanotechnology history at IBM, including the invention of the Nobel prize-winning scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) which was used to create the atomic hard drive.
The IBM scientists used the STM, an IBM invention that won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics, to view and move holmium atoms.
one holmium atom (pictured)
The data storage system uses a single atom of holmium, supported by magnesium oxide to help keep the magnetic poles of the atom stable.
By passing an electrical current through the holmium, the scientists are able to reverse these poles at will.
This allows for the switch between a 1 and 0 state - the binary positions used in computing to write and store information.
This information can be read by measuring the current passing through the atom, which will vary depending on its magnetic position.
The researchers showed that two magnetic atoms could be written and read independently, even when they were separated by just one nanometer – a distance one millionth the width of a pin head.
While commercial applications are unlikely to emerge overnight, it does represent a quantum leap in data storage technology and shows great promise for the future.
Christopher Lutz is lead nano-science researcher at IBM Research, based at Almaden in San Jose, California.
About the project, he said: 'Magnetic bits lie at the heart of hard-disk drives, tape and next-generation magnetic memory.
'We conducted this research to understand what happens when you shrink technology down to the most fundamental extreme - the atomic scale.'
The study announcing their findings was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature.
The IBM scientists used the STM, an IBM invention that won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics, to view and move holmium atoms.
one holmium atom (pictured)
The data storage system uses a single atom of holmium, supported by magnesium oxide to help keep the magnetic poles of the atom stable.
By passing an electrical current through the holmium, the scientists are able to reverse these poles at will.
This allows for the switch between a 1 and 0 state - the binary positions used in computing to write and store information.
This information can be read by measuring the current passing through the atom, which will vary depending on its magnetic position.
The researchers showed that two magnetic atoms could be written and read independently, even when they were separated by just one nanometer – a distance one millionth the width of a pin head.
While commercial applications are unlikely to emerge overnight, it does represent a quantum leap in data storage technology and shows great promise for the future.
Christopher Lutz is lead nano-science researcher at IBM Research, based at Almaden in San Jose, California.
About the project, he said: 'Magnetic bits lie at the heart of hard-disk drives, tape and next-generation magnetic memory.
'We conducted this research to understand what happens when you shrink technology down to the most fundamental extreme - the atomic scale.'
The study announcing their findings was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature.