New memory material may hold data for one billion years
May 20, 2009
Scientists are reporting an advance toward a memory device capable of storing data for more than one billion years. Credit: The American Chemical Society
(PhysOrg.com) -- Packing more digital images, music, and other data onto silicon chips in USB drives and smart phones is like squeezing more strawberries into the same size supermarket carton. The denser you pack, the quicker it spoils. The 10 to 100 gigabits of data per square inch on today’s memory cards has an estimated life expectancy of only 10 to 30 years. And the electronics industry needs much greater data densities for tomorrow’s iPods, smart phones, and other devices.
Scientists are reporting an advance toward remedying this situation with a new computer memory device that can store thousands of times more data than conventional silicon chips with an estimated lifetime of more than one billion years. Their discovery is scheduled for publication in the June 10 issue of ACS’ Nano Letters.
Alex Zettl and colleagues note in the new study that some of today’s highest-density experimental storage media can retain ultra-dense data for only a fraction of a second. They note that William the Conqueror’s Doomsday Book, written on vellum in 1086 AD, has survived 900 years. However, the medium used for a digital version of the book, encoded in 1986, failed within 20 years.
The researchers describe development of an experimental memory device consisting of an iron nanoparticle (1/50,000 the width of a human hair) enclosed in a hollow carbon nanotube. In the presence of electricity, the nanoparticle can be shuttled back and forth with great precision. This creates a programmable memory system that, like a silicon chip, can record digital information and play it back using conventional computer hardware. In lab and theoretical studies, the researchers showed that the device had a storage capacity as high as 1 terabyte per square inch (a trillion bits of information) and temperature-stability in excess of one billion years.
More information: Nano Letters, “Nanoscale Reversible Mass Transport for Archival Memory”
12 hours ago
a Gazillion Gazillion Gazillion Gazillion years !
Here's something else to think about that has been
verified over and over.
Ferroelectric densities of .2 to .5 Petabits = 200 to 500 Terabits sq. in. / 40 Petabits = 40,000 to 100 Petabits = 100,000 Terabits cu.cm. or 200,000 to 500,000 Gigabits sq.in. / 40,000,000 to 100,000,000 Gigabits cu.cm. with symmetrical read / write times of < 10 picoseconds for 100 year non-volatile storage having infinite rewrites.
Ferroelectrics space age material that has been shown to have robust Nuclear / EMF / Cosmic radiation protection exceeding all other materials used in data storage and display technology.
will it be compatible?
I want to encode the time-honored phrase of extreme wisdom: 'kiss my shiny metal ass.' :p
Egyptians still has us beat when it comes to data storage. It even survived the dark ages where unfortunately in Europe, tons of books and ancient knowledge was deliberately burned by the church or accidentally burned to be lost forever. My point is stone doesn't burn and its lots of work to destroy carvings on stone.
Whats the use of a device that will be used by a species with an amnesia cycle of every 5 to 10 thousand years. Hieroglyphs had to be re-deciphered, and that's talking about stuff people could see without highly specialized laser or electron telescopy.
Imagine yourself a scientist 10 million year from now. You've just discovered a memory device based on this technology that contains the sum of all knowledge from an ancient era. What you don't know is that the device is susceptible to shock, and you drop the device. DOH! :O
Or their lie is just too cheap.
They computer simulated the lifetime of the product. I am pretty sure that they ran the model at MIT