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Scientists want to replace electrons with so-called 'nanobubbles' — or skyrmions — to store data more densely and efficiently in advanced components that would replace RAM and flash storage.
A bizarre type of magnetic quasiparticle that looks like a tiny, swirling bubble could one day be used as a computing bit in future memory devices after scientists sped it up enough to transmit data.
"Skyrmions" — informally called "nanobubbles" by the scientists — are formed of a few dozen atoms and are just a few nanometers in width. By contrast, a strand of human hair is up to 100,000 nanometers thick. A skyrmion generates itself from magnetic field lines as it moves through a medium. The quasiparticle comprises elementary nanomagnets, called spins, that wind together over the magnetic lines to form a whirling, spiral structure that resembles a tight knot.
Scientists have long theorized that skyrmions could potentially be used to store data — where the presence of a skyrmion will encode a 1 and its absence will encode 0. For instance, IBM researchers used skyrmions in a prototype device called "racetrack memory." Previous research has also identified them as a candidate for qubits, or quantum bits, in quantum computers.
In a new study, published April 19 in the journal Science, scientists argue that skyrmions can be used to store information in a new type of "universal memory." Such a component would combine the best of separate ones in computers today — namely, short-term memory, like random access memory (RAM), and flash memory, such as solid-state drives (SSDs) or hard drives.
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A bizarre type of magnetic quasiparticle that looks like a tiny, swirling bubble could one day be used as a computing bit in future memory devices after scientists sped it up enough to transmit data.
"Skyrmions" — informally called "nanobubbles" by the scientists — are formed of a few dozen atoms and are just a few nanometers in width. By contrast, a strand of human hair is up to 100,000 nanometers thick. A skyrmion generates itself from magnetic field lines as it moves through a medium. The quasiparticle comprises elementary nanomagnets, called spins, that wind together over the magnetic lines to form a whirling, spiral structure that resembles a tight knot.
Scientists have long theorized that skyrmions could potentially be used to store data — where the presence of a skyrmion will encode a 1 and its absence will encode 0. For instance, IBM researchers used skyrmions in a prototype device called "racetrack memory." Previous research has also identified them as a candidate for qubits, or quantum bits, in quantum computers.
In a new study, published April 19 in the journal Science, scientists argue that skyrmions can be used to store information in a new type of "universal memory." Such a component would combine the best of separate ones in computers today — namely, short-term memory, like random access memory (RAM), and flash memory, such as solid-state drives (SSDs) or hard drives.
Weird magnetic 'skyrmion' quasiparticle could be used as a bit in advanced computing memory
Scientists want to replace electrons with so-called 'nanobubbles' — or skyrmions — to store data more densely and efficiently in advanced components that would replace RAM and flash storage.
