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Published online 22 April 2008 | 452, 921 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452921a
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Buckyballs give flash a boost
Fullerenes could be used to reduce amount of power needed in memory devices.
Flash memory, the workhorse of mobile phones and digital cameras, could be made more efficient by using buckyballs. These spherical fullerene molecules, comprised of 60 carbon atoms, would allow flash memory to operate at a lower voltage and save on power, researchers reported last week.
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Sanju Gupta, an electrical engineer and physicist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, says that the prospects of using buckyballs are exciting, but the reliability of these devices may lag behind, especially the resonances helping to lower the operation voltage which author mentions, as compared to alternatives including MRAM and Phase changing RAMs.