Back in 1959, scientist and physics icon Richard Feynman predicted that if all the words ever recorded in the world's history were written with atoms, they could be contained in a cube of material just two-hundredths of an inch wide. Now, more than 40 years later, a team of UW-Madison scientists are beginning to turn this seemingly whimsical calculation into reality.
With Feynman's legacy in mind, UW-Madison physics Professor Franz Himpsel and his team of researchers recently developed a revolutionary form of computer memory that utilizes individual silicon atoms instead of the 1's and 0's of more conventional computer data storage.
\The idea of this project is to leap-frog current technology and jump right to the atomic limits,"" said Himpsel, senior author of the study published in the July issue of the journal Nanotechnology. ""This way we will encounter potential roadblocks well in advance.""
The significance of this feat lies in the idea that atoms are tiny. So tiny, in fact, that when used for the purpose of storing memory, they possess a storage capability one million times greater than that of a CD-ROM.
""Having a single-atom memory to play with, we are finding out a lot about the ultimate limits of data storage density and speed,"" Himpsel said.
Still in its initial stages of development, Himpsel and his team have found that this type of memory is very slow and said the writing process can be prone to error. While he and his colleagues have demonstrated the great potential of atomic-scale memory, the process is not perfect and years will pass before it becomes mainstream. Himpsel said he would be ""long retired before seeing an atomic memory in [his] computer.""
""I would not [yet] trust my bank account to such a memory,"" Himpsel said. ""However, it might be useful for storing vast amounts of data for pattern recognition.""
Terry Devitt of University Communications is among those who see great potential in this new technology and believe the wait will be well worth it.
""This is the kind of basic science that takes years to build on and bring to practical fruition, but that doesn't make it unimportant,"" Devitt said. ""Think of the deciphering of the three-dimensional structure of DNA, an accomplishment that took place in the late 1950s. It was 30 years before the practical benefits of that in the form of biotechnology began to emerge from the lab.""
Nonetheless, Himpsel said this achievement represents a huge first step toward improving the efficiency of computer memory, the implications of which will affect millions of people in our increasingly wired world.
According to Himpsel, working with this new technology was enjoyable as well as educational.
""This has been a fun project for me and my students to work on,"" Himpsel said. ""Compared to the more arcane projects that we normally work with, it's like going back to Tinker Toys.\
