Computer disk drive capacity could be increased 1,000-fold using tiny molecules, thanks to a discovery by scientists in Dublin.

The team of researchers has found a new way to make molecular magnets become more rigid, allowing them to operate at room temperature.

The breakthrough could have significant implications for the development of computing power, enabling even more complex calculations at considerably higher speeds and even helping with the development of super-powerful quantum computers.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, was led by Prof Stefano Sanvito, the Director of the CRANN Institute at Trinity College Dublin and investigator at the AMBER materials science centre.

Very small molecules, sometimes only the size of a few atoms, molecular magnets have the same properties as normal magnets.

Their attraction has been that if used as pieces in hard-disks, they could provide significantly higher performance levels because they can be packed together at extremely high densities.

But the challenge which scientists have faced for decades has been how to make such high performance molecular magnets that can operate efficiently at room temperature, because until now they degraded and lost the data held in them unless they were kept at -200C.

"In this paper, we have shown that a drastic improvement in the high-temperature properties of magnetic magnets can be achieved by engineering the molecules to be as rigid as possible," said Prof Sanvito.

The team is already working on designs for the new molecular magnets, to put their high-performance into action.