Storing data is no easy exploit . It can command Brobdingnagian and expensive data centers to store entropy , often at great toll .

But a team of researcher from the Technical University of Delft ( TU Delft ) in the Netherlands has just made a discovery that could change all that . Described in the journalNature Nanotechnology , they have used item-by-item atoms to salt away data .

To do this incredible feat , the team used a scanning tunneling microscope ( STM ) with an super sharp needle to push atoms around . They find that atomic number 17 atoms on a fuzz sail formed a thoroughgoing control grid , allowing them to modify the arrangement and store information .

In this compositor’s case , they created a retention of 1 KB ( 8,000 piece ) . Scaling up , this could reach a storage density of 500 terabits per satisfying in ( tbpsi ) , which is 500 times better than anything commercially uncommitted today .

“ In theory , this storage density would allow all books ever make by humans to be written on a single position stamp , ” tell wind scientist Sander Otte from Delft in astatement .

A video recording explanation of the process is above

Otte explained that the procedure works a bit like a slither puzzle . " Every fleck consists of two positions on a surface of   pig atoms , and one Cl particle that we can slide back and forward between these two positions , ” he said . “ If the chlorine speck is in the top position , there is a hole beneath it – we call this a one . If the golf hole is in the top office and the Cl speck is on the bottom , then the bit is a zero . "

At the moment , this cognitive process need the store to be keep in clean vacuum conditions at melted nitrogen temperature , 77 Kelvin ( -196 ° C , -321 ° F ) . But the researchers say the method acting is scalable – so perhaps it can be used on a expectant scurf in the future .

To prove the proficiency was possible , the squad stash away a section of a public lecture by physicist Richard Feynman called " There ’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom "   on a lilliputian area just 100 millimicron across . This postulate using 8,000 “ gaps ” in a grid of chlorine atoms , and it remained static for more than 40 hours .

Aside from the equipment needed , another restriction at the moment is the read and write speed , which take several moment . But the experiment serves as a test copy of construct and , perhaps one day , our data center of attention wo n’t be quite so big anymore .