IT abroad: US researchers invent a new type of computer memory

Researchers from the University of Utah have announced about a new serious breakthrough involving the storage of data on tiny magnetic “spins” inside atomic nuclei. The researchers succeeded in recording data in atom, storing it for 112 seconds and, what is more, managed to retrieve and read the data electronically.

According to Christoph Boehme, the leading team researcher, the new data carrier could have been implemented in the computer right away, however the system works only at 3.2 degrees Kelvin, or slightly above absolute zero - the temperature at which atoms almost freeze to a standstill, and only can jiggle a little bit. And the apparatus must be surrounded by powerful magnetic fields roughly 200,000 times stronger than Earth's. Christoph Boehme mentioned that his team was currently working to overcome that obstacle.

The chip developed by the Boehme’s team is a net magnetic spin of 10,000 electrons in phosphorus atoms embedded in a silicon semiconductor. The researchers made use of that chip mainly to work with it as a traditional data carrier, which is recorded as bits. However the scientists claim that the same chip may be used to store quantum information recorded as “qubits”.