World’s Smallest Atom - Memory Unit

In development to two-year-old research, the scientists from the University of Texas at Austin in the US also found the physics have improved upon the physics that enables dense memory storage capabilities in tiny chips. With this, the researchers claim to have made the world’s smallest memory device yet. Researchers have created the smallest memory device yet, an advance that may lead to faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient electronic chips for consumer electronics and brain-inspired computing. Smaller processors enable manufacturers to make more compact computers and phones. In the research, the scientists reduced the size of what was then the thinnest memory storage device. 

Published recently in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the research mentions the development of a memory storage device with a cross-section area of just a single square nanometer. Getting a handle on the physics that pack dense memory storage capability into these devices enabled the ability to make them much smaller.

 Defects, or holes in the material, provide the key to unlocking the high-density memory storage capability. “When a single additional metal atom goes into that nanoscale hole and fills it, it confers some of its conductivity into the material, and this leads to a change or memory effect,” explained Deji Akinwande, a co-author of the study.

 In the case of chips, the importance of reducing their size lies in the fact that it allows them to generate greater efficiency, functionality and speed, while requiring less energy demand, becoming more environmentally friendly devices.

At the same time, with smaller memory chips and units it will be possible to develop more compact computers and smartphones, gaining in convenience and power.

According to the researchers, these can be smaller than currently used memory devices and boast more storage capacity.

"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," Akinwande said.

Akinwande's device falls under the category of memristors, a popular area of memory research, centered around electrical components with the ability to modify resistance between its two terminals without a need for a third terminal in the middle known as the gate. That means they can be smaller than today's memory devices and boast more storage capacity.

This version of the memristor -- developed using the advanced facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- promises capacity of about 25 terabits per square centimeter. That is 100 times higher memory density per layer compared with commercially available flash memory devices.

They said the new memristor promises a capacity of about 25 terabits per square centimetre, which is about 100 times higher memory density per layer compared with commercially available flash memory devices.