Computer files are streams of ‘0s’ and ‘1s’ digital data—that is, bits and bytes. Modern computing technology is based on our ability to write, store, and retrieve digital information as efficiently as possible. In a computer hard disk, this is achieved by writing information on a thin magnetic layer, in which magnetic domains pointing ‘up’ represent ‘1’ and magnetic domains pointing down represent ‘0’.
The size of these magnetic domains has now reached a few tens of nanometers, allowing us to store a terabyte of data in the space of just about four square centimeters. Miniaturisation, however, has created numerous problems that physicists and engineers worldwide struggle to solve at the pace demanded by an ever-growing information technology industry. Writing on tiny magnetic bits one by one, as fast as possible, and with little energy consumption, is a big hurdle. As reported in Nature, a team of scientists from the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have discovered a new method to write magnetic data that fulfils all these requirements.
