Ferroelectric materials have historically been difficult to stabilize on the nano-scale as this was due to ineffective methods of screening the charges (ferroelectric materials possess spontaneous and reversible electric dipole moments). Ferroelectricity is a physical property of a material whereby it exhibits a spontaneous electric polarization, the direction of which can be switched between equivalent The immense potential of this technology (one cubic centimeter of water is capable of storing 12. 8 million gigabytes or 12. A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix Giga-) is a unit of Information or Computer 8 thousand terabytes or 12. A terabyte (derived from the prefix Tera- and commonly abbreviated TB) is a measurement term for data storage capacity. 8 petabytes) has remained untapped since the 1960s because of this lack of stability as the wires are 100,000 times finer than a human hair (diameter of fewer than ten atoms). A petabyte (derived from the SI prefix peta -) is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to one Quadrillion
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New method of stabilization in the nano-scale
Dr. Jonathan Spanier from Drexel University and his research colleagues and the University of Pennsylvania have proposed a new mechanism stabilizing the ferroelectricity in the nano-scale by surrounding the charged material with fragments of water. Drexel University is a private Coeducational University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn) is a private University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Spanier and his colleagues found that molecules such as hydroxyl (OH) ions, and organic molecules, such as carboxyl (COOH), work even better than metal electrodes at stabilizing ferroelectricity in nano-scaled materials. Hydroxyl in Chemistry stands for a molecule consisting of an Oxygen atom and a Hydrogen atom connected by a Covalent bond. An organic compound is any member of a large class of Chemical compounds whose Molecules contain Carbon. Carboxyl group or CO2H is a Functional group present in Amino acids and Carboxylic acids Its structure is composed of one carbon atom attached [1]
Challenges and hurdles
Although stabilization is an important step towards creating stabilized ferroelectric devices, there are many problems as of yet unresolved, the two central hurdles being:
- A technique to densely assemble nanowires
- A scheme to efficiently write/read information to and from the nanowires
Possible practical applications
The most obvious and useful application of ferrolectric technology lies in mass storage of digital information (Ferroelectric RAM). Ferroelectric RAM ( FeRAM or FRAM) is a Random access memory similar in construction to DRAM but uses a Ferroelectric layer instead Although the technology is still in early stages of research, it would provide numerous advantages over current (and future) alternative storage media:
- Minute size
- No moving parts
- Does not require a power source (non-volatile) to retain charge (an advantage over conventional RAM)
- Vastly superior data density
- Storage capacities theoretically larger by order(s) of magnitude (petabytes as opposed to giga/terabytes)
- High speed transfers
See also
References
External links
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