A couple of years ago we talked about IBM's advances in atomic storage. Going from a million atoms to only twelve to store a bit represents a giant leap in density, but now a group of scientists at Delft University seems to have reached what could be a definitive limit. With the help of a scanning tunneling microscope, they have designed a storage surface with a density of 500 terabits per square inch. In other words: one bit per atom.
The demand for more storage space continues to rise, and this extends to all areas. Web services are multiplying, forcing major market players to increase the size of their data centers, while consumers must deal with new formats, heavier games, and the advance of 4K video. Recently we have seen solid-state drives with 16 terabytes of capacity, a solution that, while prohibitively expensive for the average wallet, demonstrates that powerful technology is on the way. If we move to experimental environments, the news is much more attractive. IBM continues experimenting with "atoms as bits", but the latest news comes through the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, under the wing of Delft University, in the Netherlands.
According to the data published in the study, the scientists managed to develop a storage module with eight thousand bits of capacity (almost a kilobyte in 2^10 format), in which each bit is represented by the position of a chlorine atom on a copper surface. In very relaxed terms, the chlorine-copper combination allows the formation of an ordered grid, and with the assistance of a scanning tunneling microscope, what is achieved is "changing position" of the atoms, similar to those puzzles in which we slide pieces to find the correct shape. If the atom is in the upper position, the system interprets it as a 1, and when it passes to the lower, it is read as 0.
This direct atomic manipulation gives the system an estimated density of 502 terabits per square inch, surpassing hard disk technology by three orders of magnitude (between 500 and 1,000 times denser, depending on the product taken for comparison). What is the catch? After all, there is always "something" in these developments. For the moment, atomic storage cannot leave the laboratory, since besides the scanning tunneling microscope itself, it requires a temperature of 77 degrees Kelvin (-196 degrees Celsius) to remain stable. Even so, we are talking about all the books created by the human species in the size of a postage stamp. The potential is enormous.
(Editor's note: Several partner sites erroneously reported a temperature of -321 degrees Celsius. That is impossible, as it goes beyond absolute zero. The correct figure is 77 degrees Kelvin, exactly as the study indicates.)
