North Carolina State University’s Jay Narayan led a research effort to create a computer chip that has enough memory to store all the information in a library. The chip uses nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, which are made of single, defect-free crystals and can be as small as six diameters. The nanodots are integrated directly into a silicon chip. Their precise orientation enables programmers to reliably read and write data to the chips. “We have created magnetic nanodots that store one bit of information on each nanodot, allowing us to store over one billion pages of information in a chip that is one square inch,” Narayan says. He says the chip can be manufactured at an affordable cost. Narayan wants to develop magnetic packaging that would enable lasers or other technologies to interact with the nanodots.
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University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) researchers used computational techniques to produce a roadmap for studying defects in alternative semiconductor materials. They say the findings might lead to new applications for semiconductors, and could help identify alternative materials to use for building a potential quantum computer. “Our results are likely to have an impact on experimental and theoretical research in diverse areas of science and technology, including semiconductor physics, materials science, magnetism, and quantum device engineering,” says UCSB professor David Awschalom. The researchers developed a set of screening criteria to find specific atomic defects in solids that could act as quantum qubits in a quantum computer. Experimental testing of all the potential materials could take decades of research, Awschalom says. However, the UCSB team used computational methods to examine the characteristics of potential defect centers in many different materials, providing guidelines for future experiments. “We tap into the expertise that we have accumulated over the years while examining ‘bad’ defects, and channel it productively into designing ‘good’ defects,” says UCSB professor Chris G. Van de Walle.
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