Improved Nanodots Could Be Key to Future Data Storage

Improved Nanodots Could Be Key to Future Data Storage: "The massive global challenge of storing digital data--storage needs reportedly double every year--may be met with a tiny yet powerful solution: magnetic particles just a few billionths of a meter across. This idea is looking better than ever now that researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators have made nanodot arrays that respond to magnetic fields with record levels of uniformity.


The work enhances prospects for commercially viable nanodot drives with at least 100 times the capacity of today's hard disk drives.

A nanodot has north and south poles like a tiny bar magnet and switches back and forth (or between 0 and 1) in response to a strong magnetic field. Generally, the smaller the dot, the stronger the field required to induce the switch. Until now researchers have been unable to understand and control a wide variation in nanodot switching response. As described in a new paper,* the NIST team significantly reduced the variation to less than 5 percent of the average switching field and also identif"