Researchers from Germany find a way to improve the density of magnetic data storage, by around a thousand times. The data will also last much longer than is possible today...

Today we are using Cobalt as the material of choice for magnetic data recording. The trouble is that the grains of Cobalt consist of about 50,000 atoms in a hexagonal close packed structure, and it is hard to reduce that number.

The team have found is a way to trick cobalt dimers into thinking that they're in a hexagonal close packed structure. Their idea is to attach the dimers to a hexagonal carbon ring such as benzene or graphene. In this scenario, one of the pair of cobalt atoms bonds with the carbon ring, and the magnetic field between the cobalt atoms can be switched by applying a weak magnetic field and a strong electric field.

So Carbon rings storage should allow engineers to make much longer-lasting and higher-density memory.