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.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26 2020, @11:38PM
What's any of this got to do with COVID-19, sonny? And where's the mask that should be on your face?? I ain't gonna stand here and let you whippersnapper infect me! I am 75 years old and I plan to live for another 75 years! Get that mask on your face before I call the police!! Now, me, I don't wear a mask because I don't like the way it sits on my chin. Get your mask on, boy!! I'm calling the police. Dang cell phone now how do you work this contraption.
- Every Boomer
(Score: 3, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:02AM (7 children)
Dr. Coffey, the reporters from the International Science Journal are here to see the sensor sir.
Excellent, where's that new research assistant, uh, Luuk I believe. Have him get the presentation ready will you Miss Van de Berg?
Um, sir, Luuk is in the restroom crying like a toddler.....
Really? Why is that Miss Van de Berg?
I don't know sir, he keeps repeating "I dropped the fucking thing" over and over.....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:32AM (6 children)
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. The wallet sized computer used to be joke too ("Oh no I sat on it!") but now everyone has one.
I just can't wait to see your fucking unfunny dated bullshit joke get modded up Funny+Insightful though.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:12AM (4 children)
Damn but your a sour old fart ain't cha?
And they sit on and break those "wallet sized computers every day now...."
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:29AM
A/C is getting angrier and more bitter it seems to me.
I think he's angry because nobody here wants to go with him on an expedition to the ice wall that surrounds our flat earth.
He thinks it's because we're all scared.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:41AM (2 children)
Well you see the Boomers demanded their safe space by using their influence on government to declare a lockdown and force younger people to wear face masks at gunpoint to protect Boomers from COVID-19.
The demented Boomer hypocrites here on Soystain Shitnews have the fucking audacity to claim Millennials are the ones who want safe spaces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:05AM
WoOoOoooOoOW
Some serious reverse trolling attempt going on. Or insanity. Hard to tell recently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:18AM
lol kid, elder houses were purposefully infected by being require to host recovering patients, here. You won't find any culprits because the government granted immunity from prison. Yes Italy is a progressive-ruled autocracy. progressives, why aren't you immigrating to your paradise?
https://www.linkiesta.it/2020/04/scudo-penale-medici-coronavirus/ [linkiesta.it]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:11AM
>but now everyone has one.
and people sit on it and ruin it. Remember the bent iphone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:57AM (8 children)
Sense what? reset button?
Pheonix, my man, don't muck about stuff you have no clue about.
It's your kinds that help 'muricans reject science.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Wobzter on Wednesday May 27 2020, @12:45PM (7 children)
Hi! One of the authors here.
What we are able to sense is a "magnon", also known as a "magnetic wave" that gets transported by atoms.
In particular we use magnetic atoms (Iron) on a surface where they are partially decoupled from the unlying surface, such that they behave mostly (though certainly not exactly!) as free atoms.
If you have any questions, let me know.
The full paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-020-0361-z [nature.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:23PM (1 child)
So the sensor is just 11 (13, 15, 17) iron atoms appropriately spaced in a Cu2N lattice?
I mean, bravo at getting the number of atoms into the teens, but if you aren't counting the lattice (nor the system to keep the whole thing at 1.5K), it seems a bit... hyperbolic.
Still impressive, I'd love to understand it better.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Wobzter on Wednesday May 27 2020, @01:46PM
Correct. The sensor was 11 atoms, and we attached a chain of 3, 5 and 9 atoms to it. So the largest structure would be 20 atoms.
A different research group has managed to about a hundred of them on the same surface in a very closely packed fashion: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/335/6065/196 [sciencemag.org]
So it definitely possible to scale up. The goal of this experiment was moreso for the science: how do these magnetic waves move? That's why we built a sensor.
Once we (science) understands how these magnetic waves operate better, it will be that much easier to design structures that are much easier to scale up: well beyond a hundred atoms.
I understand where you're coming from with calling it a bit... hyperbolic. However, a mouse trap (which is a kind of sensor) requires more than just itself to operate as well: it needs a surface to stand on and it needs to the right temperature, gravity and other variables (fortunately for us "ambient pressure/temperature" usually suffices). With that in mind, if we can consider the mouse trap in isolation, one could argue in favour of considering these 11 atoms in isolation as well. But I definitely see your point. Unfortunately, funding agencies like to stories that are easy to understand for the public without too many "if"s and "but"s - so we are encouraged to present it as such to the public. But I do stand by the title of the article.
If you have any more questions, I'm happy to help!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:07PM (3 children)
Thanks for the link. The memory aspect of the sensor is meant to accommodate the travel time of the STM to provide both the excitation source at the input lead and then read the result at the output lead. Would the sensor serve in its current form to record excitation from a non-STM source, say, via discrete exposure to exogenous excitation?
Also, if the sensor is sensitive up to 9 atoms away, presumably you'd be able to set up an array of them. How many could you read with one STM in a cycle?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by Wobzter on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:49PM (2 children)
Hi there Phoenix.
The sensor would serve to record a spin excitation from any source - provided this excitation travels through the input lead. To get such an excitation into the input lead, however, is quite difficult through means other than the STM tip. A laser pulse would be too large and most likely excite (i.e. trigger) the sensor as well*. We have also been looking into using the sensor as the input lead for the next sensor (i.e. spintronics). We have not gone further in this direction as of yet (there is only so much time in a day, and other experiments were waiting as well).
* I mentioned that the laser pulse would trigger the sensor as well. You could argue that this itself is a form of recording. However, it would trigger to a different kind of source (EM waves, rather than M waves). This would also be possible through the bits described in the science paper I quoted earlier. However, I again want to point out the issue of locality.
Regarding your last question: the STM tip can easily move 100 um in a short time (1-100 seconds, depending on how safe you want to travel at 300pm height). We wanted to set up a kind of array where we have a long line of, say, 100 atoms in a row. Every 10 atoms there would be a perpendicular line of atoms branching off to one of these sensors; so 10 sensors in total. It would be interesting to see how far a single pulse is able to trigger these sensors. Unfortunately, theory predicted (and we seem to corroborate that, though I'm hoping to get the chance to give experimental proof) that these waves on this particular surface would last only 10ps. With a travel speed of about 50m/s (surprisingly slow, actually! Who knew!), it would not able to go much beyond 9 atoms. So such an array would look great on paper... but in practice the results will probably disappoint.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 27 2020, @03:22PM (1 child)
Thank you, Wobzter, very interesting.
Is the placement of the sensors strictly limited by the substrate, ie. such that radial configurations aren't possible? Are you able to play with the substrates like, say, etching a circuit board?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Wobzter on Wednesday May 27 2020, @03:41PM
Correct. This substrate (CuN on Cu3Au(100)) has a square lattice. We could've also done this on a hexagon lattice (Cu3Au(111)), though the coupling strengths between the different components (interchain and intrachain) would be very different, as well as the ease of building such structures.
In a world with infinite money it would be possible build an algorithm that builds these structures for us to scale things up. For now things are done manually at the atomic level - etching of circuit boards is still too big for that (1-2 orders of magnitude, according to the latest etching techniques). Even then, the exact spacing of the atoms is difficult to do with etching techniques, but very crucial.
I hope it helps!
Cheers, Wobzter (i.e. RJG Elbertse)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:20AM
>What we are able to sense is a "magnon"
kinky!
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2020, @02:09AM (2 children)
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)
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
> and easily break.
good! the automotive sector is eagerly waiting to implement this design.
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