IBM touts tool to possibly build atom-sized computers
The development was touted as a step toward making computers based on the spin of electrons and atoms.
"We have a tool in place to develop the product of the future," said German-born researcher Andreas Heinrich of IBM’s Almaden Research Centre in San Jose, California.
"We all know we can’t shrink the silicon-based technology used in today’s computers down to the atomic level. We have to look at a radically different concept, and that is what we are doing here."
The new method was called "spin-excitation spectroscopy" and used a specially designed microscope capable of creating magnetic fields as much as 140,000 times stronger than that of the Earth, scientists said.
Researchers were able to manipulate atoms and measure the effect their spins had on each other, according to IBM.
"We can study the magnetic phenomena used in hard drives, but on the scale of single atoms," Heinrich said. "It could enable us, in the very far future, to be able to build computer devices on an atomic scale."
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