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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 26 2020, @11:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-a-personality! dept.

Phys.org:

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have developed a sensor that is only 11 atoms in size. The sensor is capable of capturing magnetic waves and consists of an antenna, a readout capability, a reset button and a memory unit. The researchers hope to use their atomic sensor to learn more about the behaviour of magnetic waves, so that hopefully such waves can one day be used in green ICT applications.

In theory, engineers can make electronic data processing much more efficient by switching to spintronics. Instead of using electrical signals, this technology makes use of magnetic signals to transmit data. Unfortunately, magnetism tends to get incredibly complicated, especially at the tiny scale of computer chips. A magnetic wave can be viewed as millions of compass needles performing a complex collective dance. Not only do the waves propagate extremely quickly, causing them to vanish in mere nanoseconds, the tricky laws of quantum mechanics also allow them to travel in multiple directions at the same time. This makes them even more elusive.

Journal Reference:
Elbertse, R.J.G., Coffey, D., Gobeil, J., et al. Remote detection and recording of atomic-scale spin dynamics, (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3759448)

The sensor is intended to help make progress with spintronics.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:09AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:09AM (#999468)

    Nanotech is really starting to take off. Assuming this thing is real, seems crazy really.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Wobzter on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:48PM (1 child)

    by Wobzter (10861) on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:48PM (#999585)

    Hi! One of the authors here.

    This is real! Unfortunately they do take a long time to build, and easily break. For example, we performed these experiments at 1K and ultra high vacuum (10^-10 milibar).

    If you have any questions, let me know.
    The full paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-020-0361-z [nature.com] [nature.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:25AM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:25AM (#1000109) Journal

      > and easily break.
      good! the automotive sector is eagerly waiting to implement this design.

      --
      Account abandoned.