Scientists Create One-Atom-Thin Magnet That Works At Room Temperature (scitechdaily.com) 45
Mogster shares a report from SciTechDaily: A one-atom-thin 2D magnet developed by Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley could advance new applications in computing and electronics. The researchers synthesized the new 2D magnet -- called a cobalt-doped van der Waals zinc-oxide magnet -- from a solution of graphene oxide, zinc, and cobalt. The new material -- which can be bent into almost any shape without breaking, and is a million times thinner than a sheet of paper -- could help advance the application of spin electronics or spintronics, a new technology that uses the orientation of an electron's spin rather than its charge to encode data. And unlike previous 2D magnets, which lose their magnetism at room temperature or above, the researchers found that the new 2D magnet not only works at room temperature but also at 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit).
Because my memory cards aren't ... (Score:5, Funny)
... hard enough to find as it is. :)
Re:Because my memory cards aren't ... (Score:5, Funny)
... hard enough to find as it is. :)
Maybe you could write a note to yourself as to where they are and stick it to the fridge with one of these puppies.
Re: (Score:2)
The fridge advertising magnet people probably have their heart set on this technology already. Their fridge Ads now gonna carry 4K video testimonials.
A whole atom thick? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A whole atom thick? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Let me know when they get down to a half an atom thick That will be impressive
Screw it, we’re going to 1/5 magnets.
Re:A whole atom thick? (Score:5, Funny)
A little less D (Score:1)
Let me know when they get down to a half an atom thick
So since the article says 1 Atom thick is 2D, that would make the half atom thick magnet 1D... :-)
magnetic tape? (Score:2, Redundant)
In normal English, A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. [wikipedia.org]
and Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording. [wikipedia.org]
This seems to be the latter, and TFS will confuse people.
"Nature" has the better headline:
Tunable room-temperature ferromagnetism in Co-doped two-dimensional van der Waals ZnO [nature.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The summary also calls this a 2D magnet, as if that other dimension that just happens to be 1 atom thick is not a dimension! It's no different than saying a 1.6 meter tall 2D car...
a new technology that uses the orientation of an electron's spin
So they re-invented the magnetic hard drive. Err floppy disk. Err magnetic tape.
-Holes in descriptions everywhere!
Re:magnetic tape? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you suggesting there are no magnets on magnetic tape?
It has magnetizable material, so sort of. Is every pin or paperclip a magnet? What about if you stroke a paperclip with a magnet - is the paperclip now a magnet?
It would be less confusing to call it "magnetised".
You and I know how magnetic tape works, but it is not, in common language "a magnet", even if the individual domains are aligned.
In a sense everything contains magnets. Every electron is a magnet.
You really don't think the language in TFS will be unclear to many people for no good reason?
Cosmic rays (Score:3)
what happens when one of these whizzes through and destroys the magnet? Is the memory device then useless ? Small is good for high density but it is also fragile.
Re: Cosmic rays (Score:3)
Error correction.
Re:Cosmic rays (Score:4, Insightful)
Well what happens on your traditional media. Paper tape and cards, get torn and clogged. Magnetic Tape can get interfered and oxide scraped off. Heads crash on Magnetic Hard disk, Solid State has a low limit number of writes....
I am not sure if you got the picture yet, but you need Error correction and backup in digital storage, because none of it is going to last forever.
Re: (Score:3)
Well what happens on your traditional media. Paper tape and cards, get torn and clogged. Magnetic Tape can get interfered and oxide scraped off. Heads crash on Magnetic Hard disk, Solid State has a low limit number of writes....
I am not sure if you got the picture yet, but you need Error correction and backup in analog storage, because none of it is going to last forever.
FTFY. Digital storage is really analog storage with a wide noise margin (with the possible exception of punch cards - we'll ignore hanging chads for the moment :) ).
Re: (Score:2)
Still with Punch Cards, you have metal to metal switch which isn't a perfect square wave, and the reason why it was a slow way to process the data was because you needed enough time for the connection to be made long enough to register the High.
Optical scanning was faster, but still if you went too fast that light may not have enough time to create the charge to be registered.
Keyboards buttons are more than just a button on a spring, but have a snapping action that would make the on to off state as quick as
Re: (Score:2)
In full Internet Pedant Mode, I was talking about the storage medium, not the readout apparatus.
But you have a point :) That's what debounce capacitors and algorithms are for.
For Bonus Points: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Nice step in the right direction (Score:3)
Could it be made slightly thinner though?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. And we'll also sell you the foam cover you need so it doesn't get crumpled the moment you put it in your pocket.
Re: (Score:2)
Use smaller atoms?
It looks like it's made of cobalt, oxygen and zinc.
"12% cobalt makes a very strong magnet" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Is the point here to make it strong enough to detect state ... not to attract things ... for storing data ... so strength only needs to be "just anough to work at near atomic-level distances"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably.
On the other hand, the average Joe doesn't know magnetic strength units from Adam's house cat....
Re: (Score:2)
No to be a dick (Score:2)
but all my magnets work at room temperature.
USA-China Cooperative Research (Score:1)
Turning a baloney Cold War into a Very Cool War.
! atom thick (Score:2)
Would you cut your finger trying to peel it off the fridge?
Bubble Memory Reborn! (Score:4, Informative)
Ended up being too expensive to implement, too power hungry, and too slow.
Re:Bubble Memory Reborn! (Score:5, Interesting)
This technology has absolutely nothing to do with bubble memory.
Bubble memory worked a lot like old mercury delay line memory. A large coil 'pushed' magnetic 'bubbles' along several parallel tracks until they reached the other side where they could be read, then rewritten at the beginning of the track.
Bubble memory was fantastic for the time. The only real drawback (and not until late in its development) was that it was a bit slow compared to alternatives. It was non-volatile and offered massive capacity at an affordable price. It was also solid-state -- no moving parts -- and that meant extreme reliability. It simply didn't wear out. That was huge.
The demise of bubble memory was surprisingly slow, and can be narrowed down to two causes: First was the cost of RAM dropping dramatically. RAM ended up being about 1/10 the cost of bubble memory, even as the cost of both continued to drop through the early 80's. Still, that wasn't enough to kill it. It still had many advantages over RAM. No, what finally killed it was flash memory, which would eventually take over bubble memory's last niche applications.
It was used in the military and AT&T all the way through the late 1980s. It's long outdated now, though I wonder why you'd think a modern version would suffer from the same problems? HDDs don't have the same problems as drives from the 80's, after all.
So when can I get... (Score:2)
"cobalt-doped van der Waals zinc-oxide" (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
BINGO !
Someone needs a basic physics refresher course on definitions - MORE THAN ONE ATOM in a substance ==> MOLECULE.
What I want to know is why none of the GENIUS readers have asked about the spin-orientation capability/control of the electrons - - - can this be modified to either generate or propagate Cooper pairs?
Now THAT would be REAL NEWS - and an actual room-temperature superconductor, producible as a process stream (instead of batch) similar to fiber optic cables.
cheers
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Scientists (Score:1)