Researchers have created the world’s smallest working memory device in a move that could have big implications for everything from consumer tech to big data and computing modelled on the human brain.
This new version of existing ‘atomristors’ uses a single atom to control memory functions – a feat that has never been achieved before.
The researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, built upon their own work from two years ago, when they built what was then the thinnest memory storage device.
This original atomristor was a single atomic layer thick, but the researchers have managed to shrink it still further, reducing the cross-section.
They used the nanomaterial molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) for the study, which was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, but believe that other atomically thin materials could potentially be used.
The technology relies on tiny, nanoscale holes caused by defects in the ultrathin material.
Deji Akinwande, a professor in the university’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, explained that when an additional metal atom fills one of these tiny holes, some of the atom’s conductivity was passed to the surrounding material.
This change in state could be used as a memory effect.
A single atom is able to control the memory function
Professor Akinwande said: “The scientific holy grail for scaling is going down to a level where a single atom controls the memory function, and this is what we accomplished in the new study.”
The technology falls under the increasingly important field of memory research known as ‘memristors’.
These are devices that are able to modify resistance between two terminals without requiring a third terminal, or gate, between them.
This allows them to pack more memory storage capacity into much smaller sizes than existing devices.
The team’s new atomristor has a cross-sectional area of just one square nanometre and could potentially provide a memory capacity of around 25 terabits per square centimetre.
That is something in the region of a hundred times higher memory density compared to existing flash drives.
This is important not just for shrinking consumer electronic devices to smaller sizes, but also for decreasing the size of memory chips, as this can also lower their energy demands while increasing capacity, meaning that faster and more powerful devices can be developed that require less power to work.
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