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If data could be encoded without current, it would make things like low-power and require much less energy. Scientists have made this with a room-temperature magneto electric memory device.

TODAY’S TREND:

Computer memory technology uses electric currents to encode data. A major limiting factor

Ø Reliability

Ø Shrinkability

Ø The source of significant power consumption.

TO BE DONE:

 If data could instead be encoded without current that is by an electric field applied across an insulator -- it would require much less energy, and make things like low-power, instant-on computing.

It is possible by making the device using a compound called bismuth ferrite. It's both magnetic -- like a fridge magnet, it has its own, permanent local magnetic field and also ferroelectric, meaning it's always electrically polarized, and that polarization can be switched by applying an electric field, called ferroic materials are typically one or the other, rarely both, as the mechanisms that drive the two phenomena usually fight each other. This combination makes it a "multiferroic" material.

Bismuth ferrite can exhibit enhanced properties and can be grown as extremely thin films , igniting its relevance for next-generation electronics.

USAGE:

Bismuth ferrite can be used for nonvolatile memory devices with relatively simple geometries because it's multiferroic. The best part is it works is at room temperature like 4 Kelvin (-452 Fahrenheit) -- not exactly primed for industry.

They found that the switching happens in two distinct steps. One-step switching wouldn't have worked, and for that reason theorists had previously thought what they have achieved was impossible. But, bismuth ferrite is technologically relevant since the switching occurs in two steps.

ADVANTAGE:

          This new technology results in low energy consumption, requires a low voltage, without current, to switch it. If a device uses currents then it consume more energy and dissipate a significant amount of energy in the form of heat. That is what heating up our computer and draining our batteries.