Single molecule technology could finally break Moore's law and allow

gadgets to store huge amounts of data on tiny flash storage cards. Chemists behind the new molecules say the new technology could help solve the looming flash storage dilemma.

Flash memory, used in nearly all of our favourite gadgets, is hampered by the physical limits of data cells, which currently use metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) components. These are almost impossible to manufacture at a scale below ten nanometers, setting an upper limit on the how much can be stored.


Scientists have now claimed a breakthrough in the use of individual molecules as a replacement for conventional data-storage components. The benefits are massive, or rather very small, with huge amounts of data potentially being stored on tiny flash memory units.

Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years, could be broken if researches can put multiple bits of data on a single molecule Laia Vila Nadal, Felix Iglesias Escudero, Leroy Cronin, Cronin Group, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow

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The team from the University of Glasgow and Rovira i Virgili University in Spain have successfully designed and synthesised new molecules that work in a similar way to transistors. The new metal-oxide clusters, known as polyoxometalates (POMs), are detailed in the journal Nature.

Professor Lee Cronin from the University of Glasgow, who led the research team, said that the new technology had incredible potential. "The incorporation of molecules will allow us to further scale down and extend Moore's law and potentially even go beyond this with multiple bits of storage per single molecule," he told WIRED.co.uk. "One major benefit of the POMs we've created is that it's possible to fabricate them with devices which are already widely-used in industry, so they can be adopted as new forms of flash memory without requiring production lines to be expensively overhauled."

Previous attempts to develop these high-tech molecules have been hampered by significant barriers. Low thermal stability and high resistance have both limited their use in existing gadgets.


Flash memory uses transistors that "remember" when they've been turned on or off, even when no longer powered. These transistors correspond to binary, allowing data to be stored. The researchers have now been able to design, synthesise and control POM molecules that can catch a charge and behave in the same way as flash RAM.

The new technology could also provide a more secure way to store sensitive information. Known as "write-once-erase" the method of storage would make it impossible to recover secret data once it has been deleted, researchers claimed.

With the work still in the early stages, it isn't clear when this technology will be market-ready.