From Popular Mechanics, April 24:
Every computer needs Random Access Memory (or RAM) for an operating system’s temporary storage, and there’s many ways to achieve this need for memory speed.
One of the leading methods is magnetoresistive memory, which is both ultrafast and non-volatile, meaning it retains data even if power supply is turned off.
Now, a new discovery that analyzes how light interacts with magnets could make MRAM even better than ever before.Your computer wouldn’t be very useful without RAM, which is short for random access memory. These chips function as the temporary storage for an operating system, and speed is of great importance, as they’re constantly needing to access bits of memory to keep everything running smoothly. For more than two decades, the most advanced version of this technology—magnetoresistive RAM, or MRAM—has been the go-to tech for the kind of intense computing necessary in industrial, military, and space applications.
Now, a new breakthrough discovered by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has illustrated how a mechanism in a laser beam can control the magnetic state in solids, which the scientists describe as a “paradigm shift” in our understanding of the behavior between light and magnetic materials. The results of the study were published earlier this year in the journal Physical Review Research.
“This discovery has far-reaching implications, particularly in the domain of data recording using light and nano-magnets,” Amir Capua, head of the university’s Spintronics lab and study co-author, said in a press statement. “It hints at the potential realization of ultra-fast and energy-efficient optically controlled MRAM and a seismic shift in information storage and processing across diverse sectors.”
RAM works by using incredibly tiny electromagnets that, once magnetized with voltage, can encode as “on” or “off”—1s and 0s in binary speak.
This breakthrough analyzes the often overlooked magnetic properties of light, which led the research team to discover that rapidly oscillating light waves can control magnets—a huge boon in the field of memory and data storage. With their new mathematical equation, Capua and his team were able to describe the strength of this interaction, along with the “amplitude of the magnetic field of light, its frequency, and the energy absorption of the magnetic material,” according to the press release....
....MUCH MORE
The PopMech author references an article at LiveScience:
Ultrafast laser-powered 'magnetic RAM' is on the horizon after new discovery
Light and magnetism? Norway's Kristian Birkeland would have been all over this action. He should have been awarded at least two Nobel Prizes:
Nominated in two separate fields for a total of seven different prizes by 13 total nominations.