Posted on 02/21/2008 1:13:27 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
For more than 40 years, semiconductor companies have boosted the performance of chips, and hence computers, by steadily shrinking the size of transistors, tiny on-off switches embedded in chips. Transistors have been shrunk so much that some transistor substructures are only a few atoms thick.
IBM, along with Intel and several research universities, is dedicating a significant amount of time and energy to take the final leap to learn how to make transistors or even processors and memory devices that consist of strands of molecules or a few atoms. In turn, this could lead to databases capable of holding exabytes of data and computers that could sift through those mountains of data rapidly. (An exabyte is a quintillion bytes, or a billion gigabytes.)
"The problems we're looking at aren't computationally driven, per se, but more information management problems," said Mark Dean, an IBM fellow and director of IBM Almaden in a recent interview. "Computation is not the hard part anymore."
Greg Wallraff and Jennifer Cha at IBM Almaden, for instance, are experimenting with ways to use designer DNA to arrange carbon nanotubes into arrays. Conceivably, this could lead to far smaller, more powerful, and cheaper chips than can be made with semiconducting manufacturing equipment.
Stuart Pankin, meanwhile, is examining ways of storing data by manipulating and controlling the magnetic fields of specific atoms. Pankin's work on the giant magnetoresistive effect over the last few decades led to significant advances in hard drive density.
One of the chief considerations in moving atoms on a substrate is how the atoms interact with what they sit on, according to Heinrich. Ideally, the atoms should bond lightly to the surface. That way, the probe can move them without exerting undue force, and the atoms will stick once they're placed. (The probe is controlled by a scientist with a computer and a mouse. In a few clicks, you can place and shift titanium atoms.)
The probe in the atomic force microscope used in this experiment is mounted on a quartz tuning fork. Changes in the vibration of the tuning fork can then be extrapolated into how much force was exerted in moving an atom.
fyi
I just love this stuff. Just imagining the possibilities leads me to dream back on the world of my great-grandparents around the 1900s, and thinking about the changes they witnessed in their life - subs, planes, autos, first transistors and first computers, missiles and satellites, etc. ... then projecting, trying to imagine to what my children and grandchildren will be witnessing. Actually, it’s pretty unimaginable, but these stories give me a taste for some possibilities.
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