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Science

New Nanofab Tech Developed by UMass 55

Posted by Hemos from the soon-a-bucket-of-nanites-in-every-home dept.
Atomasoft Corporation writes: "The article available here point out a new tool in nanotechnology: 'Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter. That amounts to a data storage density of about 1.2 trillion bits per square inch. A recent development by University of Massachusetts researchers may someday enable consumers to do just that. The research is detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science and is funded by a National Science Foundation "Partnership in Nanotechnology" grant, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy.'"
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New Nanofab Tech Developed by UMass More

New Nanofab Tech Developed by UMass

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  • I can only imagine the quantity of quality music I could fit on such a high-density disc the size of a CD. If things are to continue in this way, we should be able to fit every song in creation (that each particular individual cares for) onto one disc. The RIAA would pitch a fit.

    Another point worth mentioning: As a result of this increasing quantity of space available to record music digitally, the want and need for radio stations is going down. I sense that in the next twenty years we may be subject to a shift of radio stations broadcasting, instead of through radio waves, online. Or perhaps the radio stations (and record labels too?), being nothing more than a "middle man" of sorts, might be eradicated completely and the artists will be directly responsible for the distribution of their music, online or otherwise.

  • 25 MPAA MOVIES you mean? Bad wording. (Score:3)

    by DanThe1Man ( 46872 ) on Saturday December 16, 2000 @09:39AM (#554453)
    'Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter.

    Man, why did they have to say Movies, worse yet, DVD-quality Movies. I don't want to see the MPAA trying to stop this technology (or delay it like DVD-R). Why not say, for example, a tillrion uncopyrighted text files instead. Better yet, just the actual storage size would be fine.

  • MIB Movie (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey, remember that scene in Men In Black where Tommy Lee Jones says "This puppy will replace CDs soon" when holding up a coin sized disk?
    Eerie coincidence, don't you thing?!?!?! SPOOKY!
  • Hmm, I've lost more cd's than I can imagine, only to discover them underneath my computer.

    What'll happen if we do get these, am I gonna actually get organized for once? Heck no, I'll lose all of them.

    I'm all for miniaturization and nanotechnology, but cmon people, let's get serious here. Do we want to promote losing tiny things, or whine about larger, but still easy to lose things?

    This is what happens when I get too much sleep.

  • Big, yes, but what about speed? power? duration? (Score:3)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Saturday December 16, 2000 @09:42AM (#554456)

    Just how fast can information be written to or read from this new storage medium? For that matter, for how long can information be retained -- think DRAM. If it needs to be periodically refreshed, then how often? How about power consumption? How reliable is the storage? Would a random gamma ray fry a whole lot of those bits?

    The posts I've seen here so far suggest people have been thinking along the lines of CD or DVD kinds of storage with near-permanent storage attributes.

    Honey? I don't know how to tell you this, but you know the Super-High-Ultra-Dense-Data Electronic Recorder (SHUDDER tm) you bought me? Well, the batteries ran down and it lost all those MP3s. Could you please record them again?

    Even using a fast CD drive, that could take quite a while for the data transfer and all the disk shuffling!

    Then again, if it proves to have high data transfer rates and low power consumption, sign me up to be the first for data cartridges for a Visor and a digital camera!

  • You have a point, of course. You could theoretically make all the layers somewhat transparent and each layer would reflect light which had only certain characteristics. (don't ask me how to do that)

    Funny you should mention that. There was a story a few months back about an optical data storage technology that used florescent (sp?) methods instead of reflective (like current CD/DVD/etc.) ones. IIRC, they use 2 laser beams that intersect at a certain point within the media and it either floresces or it doesn't. or something like that...

    See here [active-hardware.com] for more info.

    Averye0

  • Re:Why isn't there a watchdog? (Score:3)

    by ErikZ ( 55491 ) on Saturday December 16, 2000 @09:43AM (#554458)
    Wow, and someday they'll invent a black hole generator, and someday they'll create a horrible plague, and someday they'll destabilize the sun and destroy the Earth, and someday....

    Look, ignore nanobots for a second. Build me a robot of ANY size that survive and reproduce.

    You can't. It will be a very VERY long time before anything like this happens. There's no watchdog because THERE'S NOTHING TO WATCH.

    I'm beginning to suspect you're a troll. I've never seen any scientist come close to claiming a tech they've produced will 'cure all our ills'.

    Ah well. Guess I'm just used to dealing with ignorance.

    Later
    ErikZ
  • It seems like that is the case. Funding for fundamental research is drying up. I think part of this comes from reduced funding available from governmental sources, NSF, DOE, etc. THe trick is that a researcher today has to balance the level of applied research with fundamental research. Get the money from applied research, funnel some of it off for your interests in fundamental research. Another reason that it looks like research funds for fundamental research is drying up, it that funding from government sources is drying up, while funding from the private sector is increasing. From the persons standpoint who used to get all their funding from government sources, it looks like fundamental research funding is decreasing, when in fact it is just shifting from one source to the next. SOme people in the private sector still give money for fundamental research, basically because it isn't cost effective, in terms of equipment cost and personnel to deal with it, so they outsource it to universities. THis is a resource that researchers haven't tradiationally tapped, and therefore, need to. Just my opninions.
  • Let's see, we got a matrix of wires with magnetic components, this sounds awfully familiar. Just real small.

    It is rather neat that they can "grow" these things without paying people to thread magnetic donuts with wire under binocular microscopes. Still, I'll be more impressed when they get a matrix hooked up and are using it to store and retrieve data.

    If they do it it will be real interesting, because core storage was very robust. The magnetic particles aren't exposed to the outside world as they are on a disc. Even these very small ones would be well protected compared to the recording surface of a disk or CD.

  • Remember holographic storage? Where'd it go? It's all vapour ware. I'm sick of hearing "we could do this" and nothing coming of it.

    During my weekly stroll at Costco, the only thing I ever see increasing in size are the drives offered by Maxtor. in the span of about 1.5 months, it seems like they went from 30GB, to 40GB to 60GB to 80GB.

    --Clay

  • I dream of a day when we use lossless
    compression exclusively because there is
    no need to conserve space. No more MPEG
    compression artifacts, no more decoding
    delays and excessive CPU/graphics card
    loads - every frame is stored ready to
    load to screen, every song is stored with
    maximum details in the most sound-preserving
    format. This in turn would rapidly force
    better monitors and speakers to go
    mainstream.
  • I've seen a few comments talking about this as if it were a new generation of DVD that just needed a few manufacturers to agree on a standard. It's not. This isn't an engineering exercise. This isn't applied research. This looks like basic science to me.

    Basic science is the cutting-edge stuff. It's where you do stuff because it's interesting, it's totally new, and it's got maybe a one in 50 chance of leading to a new product. But sometimes, just sometimes, it gets you semiconductors, penicillin, and the theory of relativity. The timeline between such research beginning and products arriving on the shelves is typically a decade, sometimes generations. To use a contemporary computer-related example, research into nanocomputing and quantum computing falls into this category.

    Applied research covers the majority of research done by companies (but not all - very large companies do a fair bit of pure research). This is often directed by companies who want to investigate things closely related to their existing products. It typically runs under shorter timelines of maybe 2 - 5 years between research and outcomes. Intel's work on say 0.07-micron processes would probably fall into this category.

    Engineering is what happens when companies turn basic and applied research into products.

    Now, while these are fairly rough categories (really they represent a continuum rather than strict definitions, and there is feedback in both directions) they are good to keep in mind when examining new developments. Criticising the latest product on the market for really just being a slight refinement on the last one is missing the point. Conversely, criticising this for being "vapourware" is equally silly. It may well take ten years to appear on the market. More likely, you'll never hear of this again. But then again, it might be the foundation of ultra-high-density storage for the computers of 2015.

  • Since the beginning of the serious pursuit of modern science, the luddites have been among us. You, sir, although you may deny it most strenuosly, associate yourself with them most strongly in your words. You speak of the GM food scare and the BSE crisis like these are actual problems, as opposed to media-generated false-crises spread by blatantly incorrect propoganda from luddite radicals. Luddite radicals with whom you ally yourself in this post.

    It is attitudes like those you express here that hold the scientific community back from its true potential. The concept you propose, that science should be governed by the whims of the uneducated masses, is preposterous. The establishment of a "watchdog body" to "inform the public properly" would be both ineffective and crippling to the science. Regardless of how the watchdog body acts, the media is going to portray any new scientific developement in the way that will get the best reaction from their audiences, most of whom are uneducated and given to shock journalism and sensationalism. Your hypothetical watchdog body can trumpet the positives of nanotechnology all you want, but the media will still seize upon the minute possibility that something could go wrong, simply because this is the best story. Look at the media play last year, regarding the possible generation of a "strangelet" at the large hadron particle collider. If this event happened, i don't debate that it could end life as we know it. But the probability of a strangelet generation event is so absurdly low it is incalculable. Not only did the media blatantly ignore scientific fact put to it by multitudes of physicists around the world, they pushed the story so hard that the collider is loosing funding. Is this what you want for nanotechnology, one of the most intrigueing and potentially world changing developements ever?

    In essence, you blame science for something that is not at all science's fault. If you want to establish a watchdog group, make it watch, not the scientists, but rather the media that distorts and lies about what science is doing. It is not the fault of science that the public is uneducated and the media is adept at exploiting that. It is not the fault of science that the media is willing to conjure facts out of nothing, to accept the ideas of un-accredited "experts" above those of researching scientists. The corruption of media is not the fault of science. Science should not be made to suffer for the stupidity of the masses.

    note: yep, that's an elitist opinion. it's also the truth. live with it.

  • >You speak of the GM food scare and the BSE crisis like these are actual problems...

    BSE IS a problem for the dozen or whatever people that have caught new type CJD in recent years.

    Do some reading on BSE and the prions that are thought to cause it. It's pretty scary stuff, worthy of the radical containment measures that are being taken.
  • If someone developed a rogue nanobot, it could quite literaly turn the entire world to sludge.

    If we had the tech to build such a robot, would we pretty much have the tech to defend against it???

  • Given how affordable and common DVD RAM is in the marketplace, or for that matter just DVD, I wonder how many decades it will be before we have access to THIS tech.

    So what happened to that holographic storage that was supposed to be coming 'any day now'


    ---
  • You are confused, this is Slashdot, not Science. Please address your concerns about the conduct of Science to the following address:

    Science
    PO Box 8473
    Schenectady, NY 12301

    I'm sure that you will be able to convince Science to mend its evil ways. If that doesn't work, though, try:

    Capitalism
    120B Broadway
    NY, NY 10009

    Good luck.

  • *YAWN* (Score:1)

    by Mock ( 29603 )
    Wel well, it's time for the "fit every human word ever written in your back pocket" miracle vapor device of the week again.

    Not bad from the continent that is still using 100MB hacked-up magnetic disks while other countries have been using Magneto Optical disks for years...
  • The same principle I mentioned in my (above) post can be likened to modern medicine. If some british scientists hadn't asked what a certian green fungi was, we would today not have penicillin. The same idea can be applied to many many things - progress is good. Understanding more is good - not "pointless."
  • The scaremongers are always among us.

    And you are one of them.



  • Magnetic vs. Optical (Score:4)

    by NevDull ( 170554 ) on Saturday December 16, 2000 @08:42AM (#554472) Homepage Journal
    Wouldn't it be more useful to pursue optical storage mechanisms than magnetic? Isn't information density going to be best served by three-dimensional storage?
  • You raise an interesting point, but I think our technology is a bit behind right now. I'm sure the scientists are doing their best to work out methods of such data storage. Still, magnetic storage isn't so bad, when you think about it...
  • CDs are already a hnady size. Make things too small and they're harder to handle or get lost too easily. If you can fit 25 DVDs (4.7G [single sided] * 25 = 117.5 GB) onto the size of a quarter, then that same bit density on a 5.25 platter would give you 51 TB of data or 10,000 DVDs worth of data. Now that's a lof of blowfished w4r3z and pr0n that Evil Feds(tm) can't prosecute me for (no password == no evidence, password protected by 5th amendment). Bottom line? Don't make it any smaller, just make it hold more data.
  • Wouldn't it be more useful to pursue optical storage mechanisms than magnetic? Isn't information density going to be best served by three-dimensional storage?

    Consider the difficulties of actually seeing through the first layer of the data-storing object. You'd actually have two-dimensional storage that's not efficient since it's folded in three dimensional space. It would be kind of like the "high-tech" alien diagrams from the movie Contact.

    You have a point, of course. You could theoretically make all the layers somewhat transparent and each layer would reflect light which had only certain characteristics. (don't ask me how to do that)

    Achieving the multi-layer effect with magnetic fields would be much more difficult.

    Flavio

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by Magus311X ( 5823 )
    Ha. I guess my tuition does help pay for something useful aside from Power Mac cubes for new professors' offices.

    -----
  • Can I start the obligatory ' now i can fit all my mp3's in place' conversation?

    Forget MP3s, they reduce music quality. You can store audio on that thing that even your dog will know to appreciate ;).

  • but how many could you get on a loony? (Canadian Dollar)
  • Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter

    Looks like I'm going to have to buy the white album again soon.

    G.

  • I'm sorry, but I really am tired of /. posters crying "vaporware" at every news release that mentions groundbreaking technology. Yes, vaporware is abundant, but this article is about a new fabrication technique and the potential it could have for data storage. They're not giving it a catchy name, or a projected selling date, a ridiculous retail price, or any other marketing buzzwords. They aren't even talking about a product. This is a development in technology from academia, and should be treated as such. Please, save the vaporware accusations for the deserving.
    ---
  • According to the RIP legislation not remembering the key is the same as refusing to hand it over.
  • ... a 6 disc changer in your car that is connected to your mp3 player... Right.....
  • Yes, but it's 1.2 trillion bits of vaporware. The size of vaporware has radically increased over the years!
  • Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter
    Imagine being able to watch ONE movie that wasn't a rehash of Blade Runner or a 60's sitcom.
    Please please please don't let them bring this to market.
  • Oh great, do we have to upgrade our entertainment media formats AGAIN?
  • not at all...what he meant was 25 full length DVD quality Atom Films [atomfilms.com]...yes...that's exactly what he meant..I plead possible legal use...
  • Tell me when I can buy one, then I'll care
    I'm tired of all this god damned vaporware

    This has got to be the 100th time I've heard of one of these "store n billion megs on a quarter" devices, and I'm still getting 650 megs a CD. Oh well, one day it'll be true, and all my backup needs will be met..till then.. *sigh*

  • Being an angbanding [angband.org] (and proud) member of UMass Lowell, i'm very pleased by this innovation coming out of one of the UMasses.
    See? this proves that poor, drunk, and underrated students/researchers can come up with useful tech.
    (HAHA! in your *face* MIT!)

    ;P
    James
    KB1FJQ
    [Bond] on irc.worldirc.org - #angband
  • In your haste to blame the media, I think you overlook a bigger problem - that the vast majority of science today is corporate research with the sole purpose of making money for the company - the effects on people's lives who don't happen to shareholders is simply irrelevant.

    It is undeniable that technology can be used harmfully and destructively, and when it is the tool of single-minded companies with bloody track records, there is a cause for unease that has nothing to do with a luddite aversion to technology.

    It's how the technology is being used. Even with all the GM hysteria and warnings and cautions, BT corn still made its way into human food supplies. No big deal if, like me, you're not allergic to the stuff and it wasn't your livelyhood that got flushed down the tubes, and you're don't give a rats ass about people who do have extreme allergies but can lead relatively normal lives by avoiding the wrong products by checking the labels.
    But at the very least, it indicates that there are "actual problems", and for many, it suggests that the problems are not being taken anywhere near seriously enough - and while you might hate to admit it, GM hysteria has played a huge role in tightening up safety precautions that were previously heading towards profit-motivated levels of an inadequacy that is only now becoming evident.

    What is really holding scientific community back from its true potential is a market system where the only research guarenteed to get funding is research that will make $$$ in the forseeable future. When the aim of science is quick bucks, not knowledge, is when science is suffering for the selfishness and stupidity of the elite. And you, sir, although you may deny it most strenuosly, associate yourself with them most strongly in your words :-)

    Science should be for the people. If the people, in their supposed "stupidity" don't want something that you believe to be an increase in their standard of living, attempting to impose such change upon them because they are too ignorant or unwashed to know what is best for themselves, is itself an uneducated stance. History repeats.

    And if you infer from this that I am anti-GM, then you haven't been listening :-)
  • I really don't think that they're actually going to make them the size of a quarter. They'll prolly still be the size of CDs, you'll just lose a lot more than a couple hundred MP3s when you slip one underneath your computer.
  • Thank You for bringing this up! I was under the impression that building the magnetic structures was not the problem, but getting those materials to retain the magnetic properties and orientation was. Am i wrong?
  • I Agree... there was nothing in the article that said it could be don AT ALL right now, with respect to reading and writing.
  • ah. BSE as in bovine spongioform encephalopathy. i was thinking BSE as in biological systems engineering, and the controversy it has caused amongst environmental activists, especially in locations like the florida everglades.

    in that case, i readily admit that BSE is a major problem. as a non-infected prion carrier myself, i'm quite familiar with the ramifications of the disease.

    however, that brings up the point that, as far as i've seen, BSE is a naturally occuring disease, a consequence not of unchecked science but rather of evolution and natural selection. admittedly, the practice of using offal in animal feed is repugnant, but it has been in use for centuries. blaming science for BSE is tantamount to blaming meteorologists because people can be struck by lightning. it seems to me that science should be congratulated for their progress, not shamed for the existence of nature. i remember when i was living in europe, in the late 80s and early 90s, they didn't even know what caused BSE. at least now with the discovery of prions, the progress of the disease can be checked to some degree, and a cure can be researched.

  • Atomasoft Corporation writes: "The article available here point out a new tool in nanotechnology: 'Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc 2.5cm in diameter. That amounts to a data storage density of about 185 Mbits/(cm^2) A recent development by University of Massachusetts researchers may someday enable consumers to do just that. The research is detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science and is funded by a National Science Foundation "Partnership in Nanotechnology" grant, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy.'"
  • Atomasoft Corporation writes: "The article available here point out a new tool in nanotechnology: 'Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc 2.5cm in diameter. That amounts to a data storage density of about 185 Gbits/(cm^2) A recent development by University of Massachusetts researchers may someday enable consumers to do just that. The research is detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science and is funded by a National Science Foundation "Partnership in Nanotechnology" grant, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy.'"

  • I can see an accident (Score:4)

    by OO7david ( 159677 ) on Saturday December 16, 2000 @08:31AM (#554496) Homepage Journal
    magine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quaality movies on a disc the size of a quarter

    *Pepsi drops from machine*

    "Whelp, I've got my drink and my movie, what could be better?"

    *looks at machine, realizes that wasn't a quater*

  • Now, you can lose your music and videos easier than ever before! "Rover, what are you eating..? aww, MOOOOM, Rover ate all the movies again!"

    Or maybe... "Honey, where's our licensed copy of Gone with the Wind?" "Damned if I know, isn't it on the disc with the Matrix and Dr. Zhivago? Check under the sofa cushions..."
  • Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter. That amounts to a data storage density of about 1.2 trillion bits per square inch. A recent development by University of Massachusetts researchers may someday enable consumers to do just that.

    Can you say "vaporware"?
    -antipop
  • No I am not. I am merely trying to get the community aware of the issues, I am not spreading fear to the general public.I am trying to be truthful and straight.

    Inspiration is the Oxygen that surrounds me

  • I have a horrible feeling that nanotech will become the next GM food scare or BSE crisis, but worse. Doesn't anyone realise the horrible potential of this technology? If someone developed a rogue nanobot, it could quite literaly turn the entire world to sludge. I'm not saying that this could happen now, but I bet you that various governments arounf the world are working on it as we speak - they are suicidal that way.

    Isn't it about time that science realised what happens with technologies like this in the public eye? First science puffs them up as the cure to all our ills, and then there is a mistake, and then the technology is tarred as the spawn of Satan.

    I would like to see science pre-empt these predictable problems by creating a watchdog body that will watch scientists and inform the public properly. The scaremongers are always among us.

    Inspiration is the Oxygen that surrounds me

  • Can I start the obligatory ' now i can fit all my mp3's in place' conversation?
  • I do agree that algorthim development is greatly important, but that is not to say that we should discount the idea of making the physical drvies more massive. Both are important.
  • What do you mean "What's the point?" The point is, we must continue to go for higher densities, otherwise storage technology (one facet of it at least) would stagnent - and that is rarely a good thing. What if, several years ago, looked at a nice floppy disk and said "What's the point? We've got plenty of hard drive space already."? Would we today have the 70GB drives we have? No, I don't think so. The idea is not to look at technology and say it is good enough - the idea is to keep on pushing the envelope, testing the limites of the world as we know it, in hopes of constnatly making things better.
  • There was an article posted early this year about FMD that is alot closer to being a viable product. 140Gb on a CDROM sized disk today, going to 1.4TB next. Check it out at: http://www.c-3d.net/
  • Unless you live in the UK, where no password == jail...

    --
  • Polymer Science and Engineering Department at UMass Amherst. paragraph about nanowires http://www.pse.umass.edu/mrsec/boal.html Some of Russels's recent references: http://www.pse.umass.edu/faculty/russell.html MERSEC http://www.pse.umass.edu/mrsec/index.html

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