Small Is The New Big

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a fingernail-sized computer chip that can hold 1 terabyte, 1 trillion bytes of data, or 50 times the capacity of today’s best silicon-based chip technologies.



The Story: Engineers from North Carolina State University have unveiled what they call a nanostructured Ni-MgO system that can store more data than any one chip ever has by far. Plus, with its miniscule size, the implications are impressive. As it is, the chip can hold up to 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text, “far exceeding the storage capacities of today’s computer memory systems,” according to a press release from North Carolina State University.

Dr. Jagdish “Jay” Narayan, director of the National Science Foundation Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures at the university, has spearheaded the effort behind this breakthrough, though his team’s breakthrough relies on the process of selective doping, where an impurity is added to a material whose properties consequently change. Their work begins at the nanoscale level, where the engineers added metal nickel to magnesium oxide, a ceramic. This addition contained clusters of nickel atoms no bigger than 10 square nanometers, just for perspective, a pinhead has a diameter of 1 million nanometers. The result netted a 90% reduction in the size of the chip, yet with an a vastly enhanced capacity to hold more data.

“Instead of making a chip that stores 20 gigabytes, you have one that can handle one terabyte, or 50 times more data,” Dr. Narayan said.

The process also shows promise for boosting vehicles’ fuel economy and reducing heat produced by semiconductors, a potentially important development for more efficient energy production. By using the process of selective doping, the engineers could introduce metallic properties into ceramics, Narayan said. The process would allow them to develop a new generation of ceramic engines able to withstand twice the temperatures of normal engines. The engines could potentially achieve fuel economy of 80 miles per gallon, Narayan said.

And, since the thermal conductivity of the material would be improved, the technique could also have applications in harnessing alternative energy sources like solar energy.

The breakthrough using the process of selective doping also advances knowledge in the emerging field of “spintronics,” which is dedicated to harnessing energy produced by the spinning of electrons.

“Most energy used today is harnessed through the movement of current and is limited by the amount of heat that it produces, but the energy created by the spinning of electrons produces no heat,” the university stated in a press release.

The engineers manipulated the nanomaterial so the electrons’ spin within the material could be controlled, which could prove valuable to harnessing the electrons’ energy. The finding could be important for engineers working to produce more efficient semiconductors.