IBM Research - Almaden

IBM Research Determines Atomic Limits of Magnetic Memory

This image shows the same magnetic byte imaged 5 times in different magnetic states.

The entire information technology industry is squeezing everything it can out of Moore's Law, pursuing incremental improvements in scaling and performance. So far, that's served us well - computers that used to occupy entire rooms now fit into our pockets.

But these incremental improvements won't last forever. The ability to manipulate matter by its most basic components - atom by atom - and explore their properties from the "bottom up," enabled IBM Research to build the world's smallest magnetic memory bit and answered the question of how many atoms it really takes to reliably store one bit of magnetic information:12.

Using an unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism, scientists demonstrated a new, experimental atomic-scale magnet memory that is at least 100 times denser than today's hard disk drives and solid state memory chips.

IBM's continued emphasis on fundamental science and investment in R&D puts it in a unique position to move beyond incremental improvements and redefine the frontier of information technology.

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