By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: August 31, 2007
Published: August 31, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 30 — Researchers at I.B.M. laboratories say they have made progress toward storing information and computing at the level of individual atoms.
The scientists documented their work in two papers appearing on Friday in the journal Science. Both papers are focused on new understanding of the behavior of magnetism at the tiny scale of nanotechnology, where scientists hope to develop electronics made from components that are far smaller than today’s transistors and wires.
In one paper the researchers describe a technique for reading and writing digital ones and zeroes onto a handful of atoms, or even individual atoms. The second paper describes the ability to use a single molecule as a switch, replicating the behavior of today’s transistors.
The papers are the latest indication that computing technology is beginning to emerge that could replace today’s microelectronics materials in the next decade.
R. Stanley Williams, a Hewlett-Packard physicist, said this week that his group had begun manufacturing prototypes of a silicon chip that combines both conventional microelectronics and molecular scale components. Their first hybrid device is a circuit called a field programmable gate array, or F.P.G.A., using molecular-scale components as the configuration circuitry, an approach that will save tremendous space in the chip design.
A team of I.B.M. researchers at the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., were able to use a scanning tunneling microscope to observe the magnetic orientation of iron and manganese atoms at low temperatures. Controlling magnetic direction is a crucial technique that is used in reading and writing digital information on magnetic storage disks like standard hard drives.
In addition to the potential storage applications, the researchers noted that atomic-scale magnetic structures are also of scientific interest because they may be harnessed for quantum computing, a technology that would be far faster than current computers for some specialized uses.
A second group of I.B.M. scientists in Zurich were able to place two hydrogen atoms in an ultrathin insulating film and switch them back and forth between two states, creating the equivalent of the ones and zeroes used in standard chips. They were also able to use the same switching process to inject an electric charge into one molecule and link the effect to a neighboring molecule. That suggests it might be possible to extend the effect into a fabric of trillions of atom-size switches in the future.
The laboratory advances are far from being ready to commercialize, but they provide hope for the electronics industry, which has grown steadily because of the continuous shrinking in size and falling cost of components for more than four decades.
The scientists documented their work in two papers appearing on Friday in the journal Science. Both papers are focused on new understanding of the behavior of magnetism at the tiny scale of nanotechnology, where scientists hope to develop electronics made from components that are far smaller than today’s transistors and wires.
In one paper the researchers describe a technique for reading and writing digital ones and zeroes onto a handful of atoms, or even individual atoms. The second paper describes the ability to use a single molecule as a switch, replicating the behavior of today’s transistors.
The papers are the latest indication that computing technology is beginning to emerge that could replace today’s microelectronics materials in the next decade.
R. Stanley Williams, a Hewlett-Packard physicist, said this week that his group had begun manufacturing prototypes of a silicon chip that combines both conventional microelectronics and molecular scale components. Their first hybrid device is a circuit called a field programmable gate array, or F.P.G.A., using molecular-scale components as the configuration circuitry, an approach that will save tremendous space in the chip design.
A team of I.B.M. researchers at the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., were able to use a scanning tunneling microscope to observe the magnetic orientation of iron and manganese atoms at low temperatures. Controlling magnetic direction is a crucial technique that is used in reading and writing digital information on magnetic storage disks like standard hard drives.
In addition to the potential storage applications, the researchers noted that atomic-scale magnetic structures are also of scientific interest because they may be harnessed for quantum computing, a technology that would be far faster than current computers for some specialized uses.
A second group of I.B.M. scientists in Zurich were able to place two hydrogen atoms in an ultrathin insulating film and switch them back and forth between two states, creating the equivalent of the ones and zeroes used in standard chips. They were also able to use the same switching process to inject an electric charge into one molecule and link the effect to a neighboring molecule. That suggests it might be possible to extend the effect into a fabric of trillions of atom-size switches in the future.
The laboratory advances are far from being ready to commercialize, but they provide hope for the electronics industry, which has grown steadily because of the continuous shrinking in size and falling cost of components for more than four decades.
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