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Vědci ze společnosti IBM úspěšně uložili informaci do jediného atomu. Pokud by byl tento technologický průlom prakticky uskutečnitelný, znamenal by radikální zvýšení kapacity a minidata storage authentication.

Current hard drives require one hundred thousand atoms to store one bit of data. The technology from IBM, which is also based on the principle of magnetic writing, will allow data to be recorded a thousand times denser, which means that computers will one day become radically smaller and more powerful. If such a technique were practically feasible, then the entire iTunes catalog of 35 million songs could be stored on credit card-sized storage.

Uložení dat do atomu není snadné. Digitální informace se skládají z binárních kódů, tedy vše od e-mailu až po nový iOS se skládá z řad nul a jedniček. Soustava informací se na pevné disky ukládá pomocí magnetické indukce, s níž pracovali i vědci z IBM, ale v menším měřítku.

Using individual holmium atoms, the IBM team needed to find a way to make two magnetic poles to represent zeros and ones. In a study published in the scientific journal Nature, the physicists detailed their experiments in which they placed individual holmium atoms on a layer of magnesium oxide, holding the atoms in place. Under a temperature of minus 268 degrees Celsius and using a scanning tunneling microscope (an IBM invention for which it won the Nobel Prize in Physics in the 80s), they exposed the atom to an electric voltage that determined the magnetic pole. At this pole, atoms are able to remain for a long time, thanks to the stability of holmium. By determining the magnetic orientation of an atom, scientists were able to read it and determine whether it corresponds to a zero or a one.

For now, these are only experiments, so it will take decades before this technique is commercially viable.

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Source: iDropNews

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