Cornell researchers are testing devices that could form the basis for a potential ultra-small computer data storage system that could gather up to 100 times as much information in the same space as present-day magnetic data disks. An array of the devices that make up the system is considerably smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Postdoctoral associate Stephane Evoy, graduate student Lidija Sekaric and research support specialist Dustin Carr described their work at the centennial meeting of the American Physical Society in Atlanta. They are part of a research group working under Harold Craighead, professor of applied and engineering physics, and Jeevak Parpia, professor of physics.
The devices are "nanomagnets" -- tiny bar magnets as small as 25 nanometers (nm) long. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Such nanomagnets are being considered by several research groups as potential candidates for future magnetic storage applications. "We're not looking at the mechanisms for reading and writing to these devices as other groups are already addressing such issues," Evoy said. "What we need is to understand the physics of small magnets."
At the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility, the researchers deposited rows of tiny cobalt dots on silicon surfaces using techniques originally designed to make electronic circuits. In various experiments they created dots ranging from 25 nm to 100 nm wide, in several different arrangements. Most are about 80 nm wide, 140 nm long and about 20 nm thick.
In most experiments, the Cornell researchers apply a magnetic field to an entire array, then measure the states of the individual magnets. They have found that there is a great deal of interaction between the tiny magnets. Sometimes, a whole row will line up one way, with adjacent rows in the opposite orientation.
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