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Posted on 02/07/2012 10:44:06 PM PST by LibWhacker
An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology.
The researchers found they could record information using only heat - a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too.
The results of the research, which was led by the University of York's Department of Physics, are reported in the February edition of Nature Communications.
York physicist Thomas Ostler said: "Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, we harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat. This revolutionary method allows the recording of Terabytes (thousands of Gigabytes) of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard drive technology. As there is no need for a magnetic field, there is also less energy consumption."
The multinational team of scientists included researchers from Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Japan and the Netherlands. Experimental work was carried out at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Dr Alexey Kimel, from the Institute of Molecules and Materials, Radboud University Nijmegen, said: "For centuries it has been believed that heat can only destroy the magnetic order. Now we have successfully demonstrated that it can, in fact, be a sufficient stimulus for recording information on a magnetic medium."
Modern magnetic recording technology employs the principle that the North pole of a magnet is attracted to the South pole of another and two like poles repulse. Until now it has been believed that in order to record one bit of information – by inverting the poles of a magnet – there was a need to apply an external magnetic field. The stronger the applied field, the faster the recording of a magnetic bit of information.
However, the team of scientists has demonstrated that the positions of both the North and South poles of a magnet can be inverted by an ultrashort heat pulse, harnessing the power of much stronger internal forces of magnetic media.
Another reporter handicapped by being beyond his depth. No hint whatsoever as to what magic is involved in creating no-energy heat.
It's been a long time since I seriously studied physics, but it seems to me that generating heat is more energy intensive than generating magnetic fields. I hope there are followup details, somewhere.
Yeah, and I would think a lot slower. How do you rapidly switch a heater's output level?
You use a laser...
The international team of scientists are going to have to get in the long line of breakthrough announcements to see if their name ever comes up for practical application. I can’t recall one that has, really, since the transistor.
Meanwhile, “Moore’s Law” chugs along as the silicon gnomes forge ahead on the exponential scales of speed and capacity, unheralded.
... who are these guys ?
My inverted pole magnet can be made upright by a female ultrashort heat pulse.
This is cool. Well, actually I guess it’s a little hot . . .
That does it. I’m selling the Betamax.
Go to your room.
Or rom.
Creating magnetic fields uses significantly more power. A magnetic field is generated by passing current through a coil. A relatively small 3 Tesla field using a resistive coils requires a large amount of power. The largest magnet in the world at the National High Magetic Field Laboratory has its own power plant and consumes about 25 percent of the power in Tallahasssee, when fully powered.
So no....using a small heat pulse to reverse a field is magnitudes less power. By the way, Nature and Science are probably the top scientific journals in the world. It wouldn’t be there if it wasnt significant.
I doubt the copyright police will be able to catch this stuff.
If people want to sell stuff on recorded media they will need to come up with some new way to do it.
lol at your dam bug
Ahh, of course. Thanks.
If verifiable and can be implemented industry-wide, this should just about sound the death knell for solid state drives.
Nice ping graphic....thanks.
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