Scientists create nanoscopic data storage using graphene ‘paper’ and electron ‘ink’
Scientists create nanoscopic data storage using graphene ‘paper’ and electron ‘ink’. Using graphene “paper” and electron “ink,” Danish and Chinese scientists have created one of the tiniest data storage methods ever devised. In the photo above, captured by a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), the thickness of the lines — the font size if you will — is just 2-3nm, or about 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. This technique could eventually be used as a means of nanoscale data storage (can you imagine storing the entire Library of Congress on a single gram of graphene?), or to create graphene-based computer circuits. As you’re probably aware by now, graphene naturally forms into sheets that are just one atom thick. Gaphene, by virtue of being constructed out of carbon atoms, which are rather small, is the world’s thinnest known material. Interacting with a sheet material that is just one atom thick, however, is rather hard; or, in writing terms, it...