Scientists at EPFL and ETH Zurich have built a single-atom magnet that is the most stable to-date. The breakthrough paves the way for the scalable production of miniature magnetic storage devices.
Magnetic storage devices such as computer hard drives or memory cards are widespread today. But as computer technology grows smaller, there is a need to also miniaturize data storage.
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Ref: Magnetic remanence in single atoms. Science (15 April 2016) | DOI: 10.1126/science.aad9898
ABSTRACT
A permanent magnet retains a substantial fraction of its saturation magnetization in the absence of an external magnetic field. Realizing magnetic remanence in a single atom allows for storing and processing information in the smallest unit of matter. We show that individual holmium (Ho) atoms adsorbed on ultrathin MgO(100) layers on Ag(100) exhibit magnetic remanence up to a temperature of 30 kelvin and a relaxation time of 1500 seconds at 10 kelvin. This extraordinary stability is achieved by the realization of a symmetry-protected magnetic ground state and by decoupling the Ho spin from the underlying metal by a tunnel barrier.