Researchers are studying a rare class of materials which could lead to faster, more reliable memory storage in computers. Researchers from Victoria University of Wellington are studying the properties of rare earth nitrides (RENs), thin films grown under ultra-high vacuum which are both magnetic and semiconducting.
Dr Ben Ruck from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences explained that a computer has two types of memory, a hard disk drive coated with magnetic material, and random access memory (RAM) that stores data electrically. The issue with RAM is that it does not retain information when the host computer turns off.
“What we’re working on is a magnetic type of RAM that doesn’t disappear. Because data is retained when the power is switched off, a device can perform faster, be more versatile and use less energy. This is ideal, as an example, for cloud data storage spanning across multiple servers,” said Ruck.
