Today’s disk drives, which use about 1m atoms to store a 1 bit of information. The ability to manipulate matter by its most basic, atom by atom could lead to the vital understanding necessary to build smaller, faster and more energy-efficient devices. 

The silicon transistor technology has become cheaper, denser and more efficient, fundamental physical limitations suggest conventional scaling is ultimately unsustainable. Alternative approaches are needed to continue the rapid pace of computing innovation.

By taking a novel approach and beginning at the smallest unit of data storage, the atom, scientists demonstrated magnetic storage that is at least 100 times denser than today’s hard disk drives and solid state memory chips.

“The chip industry will continue its pursuit of incremental scaling in semiconductor technology but, as components continue to shrink, the march continues to the inevitable end point: the atom. We’re taking the opposite approach and starting with the smallest unit -- single atoms -- to build computing devices one atom at a time,” said Andreas Heinrich, lead investigator into atomic storage at IBM Research – Almaden, in California.

The team: