Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Ever wished you had a super-reliable computer that used less power and could instantly start-up and be ready for use? Researchers from Cornell University are working on a new technology that could lead to just such a breakthrough.

A team from the Ithaca, New York-based institution said that modern computer memory technology requires electric currents in order to encode data. This, they explain, is a major inhibitor to enhanced reliability and shrinkability in computers. However, if data could be encoded without current, it solves these issues while also reducing power consumption.

Postdoctoral associate John Heron and his colleagues are in the process of developing a computer which would encode data using an electric field applied across an insulator. As they work towards that goal, they have announced the successful completion of a room-temperature magnetoelectric memory device equivalent to one computer bit.

This breakthrough, which the researchers said exhibits the holy grail of next-generation nonvolatile memory: magnetic switchability, in two steps, with nothing but an electric field, is described in a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

A conceptual illustration of magnetization reversal, given by the compasses, with an electric field (blue) applied across the gold capacitors. The compass needles under the electric field are rotated 180 degrees from those not under the field (0 degrees rotated). The two-step switching sequence described in the paper is represented by the blurred compass needle under the electric field, making an intermediate state between the 0 and 180-degree rotated states. (Credit: John Heron)

The advantage here is low energy consumption, Heron explained in a statement. It requires a low voltage, without current, to switch it. Devices that use currents consume more energy and dissipate a significant amount of that energy in the form of heat. That is whats heating up your computer and draining your batteries.

This device was created out of a compound known as bismuth ferrite, which is frequently used by researchers because it is both magnetic and ferroelectric. In other words, it has its own permanent local magnetic field, is also constantly electrically polarized, and can have its polarization changed simply by applying an electric field. Typically, ferroic materials possess either one trail or the other, but bismuth ferrite is one of the rare materials that have both.

This combination makes bismuth ferrite a multiferroic material, and as researchers at the University of California, Berkeley first demonstrated 11 years ago, the compound can be grown as extremely thin films which can exhibit the same enhanced properties as other, bulkier materials, illustrating its desirability for use in next-gen technological development.

Because its multiferroic, bismuth ferrite can be used for nonvolatile memory devices with relatively simple geometries, Cornell University officials explained. The best part is it works at room temperature; other scientists have demonstrated similar results with competing materials, but at unimaginably cold temperatures, like 4 Kelvin (-452 Fahrenheit).

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Future computers will turn on instantly, store data in electric current