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Futurity reported that researchers at Rice University are looking into high-density memory storage for computers based on tantalum oxide.
Futurity reported that researchers at Rice University are looking into high-density memory storage for computers based on tantalum oxide.
As quoted in the publication:
The memories are based on tantalum oxide, a common insulator in electronics.
Applying voltage to a 250-nanometer-thick sandwich of graphene, tantalum, nanoporous tantalum oxide, and platinum creates addressable bits where the layers meet. Control voltages that shift oxygen ions and vacancies switch the bits between ones and zeroes.
The discovery by the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour could allow for crossbar array memories that store up to 162 gigabits, much higher than other oxide-based memory systems under investigation by scientists. (Eight bits equal one byte; a 162-gigabit unit would store about 20 gigabytes of information.)