The research was led by Aaron Lindenberg, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. This is a major upgrade of the storage type of non-volatile memory, which is completed by computers using silicon-based technologies such as flash memory chips.
This technology is based on a newly discovered metal, which can form an incredible thin layer, only three atoms thick. The researchers stacked these layers made of metal called "tungsten dichloride", just like a pair of nanoscale cards. By injecting a very small current into a pile of cards, the researchers moved the odd layers of each layer slightly from the even layers on it. This movement is permanent, or nonvolatile, until the impact of another current rearranges the odd and even layers again.
Lindenbergh said: "The arrangement of layers becomes a way of information coding. Created an on and off for storing binary data, 1 and 0. "
In order to read the digital data stored between these changing atomic layers, the researchers used a quantum property called Berry curvature, which manipulated the electrons in the material like a magnetic field and read the arrangement of the layers without disturbing the stacking.
Xiao Jun, a postdoctoral scholar in Lindenbergh Laboratory and the first author of this paper, said that the energy required to move this layer back and forth is very small. This means that writing 0 or 1 to a new device should require much less energy than today's nonvolatile memory technology. In addition, according to the research published by the same group in Nature last year, the sliding of the atomic layer can occur so fast that the speed of data storage is more than 100 times faster than that of the prior art..
The design of prototype equipment is based on the theoretical calculation provided by Xiaofeng Qian, assistant professor at the University of Texas, and the graduate students in his laboratory. After the researchers observed the experimental results consistent with the theoretical prediction, they made further calculations, which convinced them that further improving its design would greatly increase the storage capacity of this new method and pave the way for the transition to a new and more powerful non-volatile memory using ultra-thin two-dimensional materials.
The team has patented their technology and further improved their memory prototype and design. They also plan to find other two-dimensional materials that can be used as data storage media, even better than "tungsten telluride".
Lindenbergh said: "Very small adjustments to these ultra-thin layers will have a great impact on their functional characteristics. We can use this knowledge to design new energy-saving equipment to achieve a sustainable and intelligent future. "
The study was published in the journal Nature Physics.