By Peter Weiss
Every year, computer-disk makers manage to cram about twice as much information onto their products as the year before. At that furious pace of shrinkage, the already tiny regions of magnetic material representing bits of digital information will soon span only tens of atoms on an edge. One problem: Researchers don’t know if such small domains are suited for the data-storage job.
In a study that may help fill that knowledge gap, a team of German researchers has now demonstrated a technique for making images of ultrasmall magnetic regions. The new tool may enable scientists to test materials and minuscule structures for magnetic stability and other traits crucial to data storage. Moreover, its inventors say, the technique itself may give rise to a new and better method for reading digital information, the researchers propose.