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A kilobyte rewritable atomic memory

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 926–929 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The advent of devices based on single dopants, such as the single-atom transistor1, the single-spin magnetometer2,3 and the single-atom memory4, has motivated the quest for strategies that permit the control of matter with atomic precision. Manipulation of individual atoms by low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy5 provides ways to store data in atoms, encoded either into their charge state6,7, magnetization state8,9,10 or lattice position11. A clear challenge now is the controlled integration of these individual functional atoms into extended, scalable atomic circuits. Here, we present a robust digital atomic-scale memory of up to 1 kilobyte (8,000 bits) using an array of individual surface vacancies in a chlorine-terminated Cu(100) surface. The memory can be read and rewritten automatically by means of atomic-scale markers and offers an areal density of 502 terabits per square inch, outperforming state-of-the-art hard disk drives by three orders of magnitude. Furthermore, the chlorine vacancies are found to be stable at temperatures up to 77 K, offering the potential for expanding large-scale atomic assembly towards ambient conditions.

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Figure 1: Hopping mechanism of a Cl vacancy on chlorinated Cu(100).
Figure 2: Data-encoding principle.
Figure 3: Kilobyte atomic memory.
Figure 4: Thermal stability and vacancy–vacancy interactions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A.J. Heinrich for discussions. This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/OCW), as part of the Frontiers of Nanoscience program, the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM), and by the Kavli Foundation. J.F.R. and J.L.L. acknowledge financial support by Marie-Curie-ITN grant no. 607904-SPINOGRAPH. J.F.R. acknowledges financial support from MEC-Spain (grant no. FIS2013-47328-C2-2-P) and Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO 2012/011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Quantum Nanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, Delft, 2628 CJ, The Netherlands

    F. E. Kalff, M. P. Rebergen, E. Fahrenfort, J. Girovsky, R. Toskovic & A. F. Otte

  2. International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Avenida Mestre José Veiga, Braga, 4715-310, Portugal

    J. L. Lado & J. Fernández-Rossier

  3. Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, 03690, Spain

    J. Fernández-Rossier

Authors
  1. F. E. Kalff
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  8. A. F. Otte
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Contributions

F.E.K. and E.F. developed the vacancy movement procedure. M.P.R., F.E.K. and A.F.O. programmed the autonomous vacancy manipulation. J.G., M.P.R. and R.T. performed the measurements at 77 K. J.L.L. and J.F.-R. performed the DFT and Monte Carlo calculations. A.F.O. devised the experiment and supervised the research. All authors discussed the results and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to A. F. Otte.

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The authors have filed a Dutch patent application (NL2016335) for the subject matter described in this manuscript.

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Kalff, F., Rebergen, M., Fahrenfort, E. et al. A kilobyte rewritable atomic memory. Nature Nanotech 11, 926–929 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.131

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