A NEW way of storing digital data has been pioneered by researchers in the US
and China. Their feat is to have reversibly altered the conductivity of areas
little bigger than molecules in a thin film of material. This should eventually
allow data to be packed more densely than will ever be possible with optical or
magnetic media, they say.
The researchers, from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the
Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, made an insulating crystalline film just
20 nanometres thick by depositing a mix of 3-nitrobenzal malonitrile and
1,4-phenylenediamine on a glass plate. They…
