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posted by janrinok on Friday November 21 2014, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-yet-available-in-a-store-near-you dept.

Novel molecules could help flash memory move beyond its storage limits, allowing for massive amounts of data to be recorded in small spaces, according to European scientists.

Metal-oxide clusters that can retain electrical charge and act as RAM could form a new basis for data cells used in flash memory, the researchers from the University of Glasgow’s Schools of Chemistry and Engineering and Rovira i Virgili University in Spain wrote in a letter ( http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13951.html ) published in Nature.

The group of 13 researchers said that polyoxometalate (POM) molecules can act as storage nodes for MOS flash memory. They used tungsten to synthesize POM metal-oxide clusters and added selenium to their inner cores, in a process known as doping, to create a new type of memory they call “write-once-erase.”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2851032/molecular-flash-memory-could-store-massive-data.html

[Additional Coverage]: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/11/researchers-craft-molecule-that-works-as-flash-storage/

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 21 2014, @02:57PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 21 2014, @02:57PM (#118495) Journal

    The arsetechnicum coverage is better

    To see whether it could work as flash memory, the authors coated a wire with a single layer of the caged molecules. They were able to show that the resulting device could be injected with charges by applying a large negative voltage, and they'd stay in place for at least 336 hours (the longest period tested) with no loss. The presence of the electrons could be read out at with the application of a smaller voltage, and a large positive voltage could rest the device to its original state.

    The size of the voltages involved, however, were quite large compared to current devices; both write and erase were done at-20V and +20V, respectively. The authors blame that on the fact that the material was simply coating the wire, and suggest an optimized geometry could provide much better performance.

    Similar things are true for the write and read speeds. Setting the device took 0.1 seconds, while reading it required 100 milliseconds—both way too slow for a practical flash device. Calculations based on a molecular model suggest that writing could be as fast as a picosecond or less. But the authors note that, by this point, the actual path the electrons take into the molecule will dictate performance, so they don't expect to see that sort of speed.

    The authors do fabricate a limited device based on another collection of these molecules, but most of the rest of the paper is taken up with molecular modeling. All of this suggest it's a promising system—if you stuff enough charge into the device, then the difference between the on and off states goes up by about 11 orders of magnitude. Yet it's not clear whether this material goes beyond promising.

    Let me guess... 20 years from now?

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday November 21 2014, @04:52PM

      by cafebabe (894) on Friday November 21 2014, @04:52PM (#118528) Journal

      Let me guess... 20 years from now?

      I don't know. That isn't in the table [xkcd.com].

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      1702845791×2
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @08:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @08:42PM (#118595)

        It's in the alt text.

        A technology that is '20 years away' will be 20 years away indefinitely

  • (Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Friday November 21 2014, @03:11PM

    by marcello_dl (2685) on Friday November 21 2014, @03:11PM (#118498)

    in the future, your misplaced micro sims will make you lose much more data. Oh wait.

    • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday November 21 2014, @04:54PM

      by cafebabe (894) on Friday November 21 2014, @04:54PM (#118530) Journal

      I'm considering filing everything by size. It has the upside that it can be performed while tired or drunk and at least I'll know where to look when I require something.

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      1702845791×2
  • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday November 21 2014, @07:42PM

    by cafebabe (894) on Friday November 21 2014, @07:42PM (#118574) Journal

    Why polyoxometalates [wikipedia.org] rather than macrocycles [wikipedia.org]? Macrocycles use less atoms and are [wikipedia.org] used [wikipedia.org] throughout [wikipedia.org] nature [wikipedia.org].

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    1702845791×2