Nature: Chlorine atoms have been used to create a tiny 1-kilobyte rewritable storage device. Sander Otte of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and his colleagues arranged the chlorine atoms into square grids on a copper surface. By including vacant spaces in between the Cl atoms, the researchers show how the atoms can be moved around using a scanning tunneling microscope and a sharp needle. The resulting patterns of atoms and vacancies can then be used to encode information in binary form. Such a system, if scaled up, could store hundreds of terabytes of data in a device the size of a grain of salt. Besides data storage, the technology could have other applications, such as the design of new materials.
Despite the tumultuous history of the near-Earth object’s parent body, water may have been preserved in the asteroid for about a billion years.
October 08, 2025 08:50 PM
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Physics Today - The Week in Physics
The Week in Physics" is likely a reference to the regular updates or summaries of new physics research, such as those found in publications like Physics Today from AIP Publishing or on news aggregators like Phys.org.