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A kilobyte rewritable atomic memory.
- Source :
-
Nature nanotechnology [Nat Nanotechnol] 2016 Nov; Vol. 11 (11), pp. 926-929. Date of Electronic Publication: 2016 Jul 18. - Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- The advent of devices based on single dopants, such as the single-atom transistor, the single-spin magnetometer and the single-atom memory, has motivated the quest for strategies that permit the control of matter with atomic precision. Manipulation of individual atoms by low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy provides ways to store data in atoms, encoded either into their charge state, magnetization state or lattice position. A clear challenge now is the controlled integration of these individual functional atoms into extended, scalable atomic circuits. Here, we present a robust digital atomic-scale memory of up to 1 kilobyte (8,000 bits) using an array of individual surface vacancies in a chlorine-terminated Cu(100) surface. The memory can be read and rewritten automatically by means of atomic-scale markers and offers an areal density of 502 terabits per square inch, outperforming state-of-the-art hard disk drives by three orders of magnitude. Furthermore, the chlorine vacancies are found to be stable at temperatures up to 77 K, offering the potential for expanding large-scale atomic assembly towards ambient conditions.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1748-3395
- Volume :
- 11
- Issue :
- 11
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Nature nanotechnology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 27428273
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.131