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Tuesday, 4th December 2007 (4452 views)

The storage density of flash memories – which are used in memory cards for digital cameras and USB sticks – can be improved with the addition of gold nanoparticles, a team of researchers has discovered.

According to Chemistry World, Scientists from the University of Melbourne in Australia and Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea used stacked layers of the tiny gold particles, insulated with polymer, to increase the density of flash memory.

Creating a "multilayer sandwich" measuring fewer than 20 nanometers in thickness per layer, negatively-charged gold nanoparticles were used to boost memory density by up to 3.6 times that of a single-layered device, Korean scientist Jang Sik-Lee told the publication.

University of Liverpool-based electrochemistry researcher David Schiffrin said the technique can be developed even further by using materials with smaller dimensions.

"[This] shows that simple chemical techniques employing nanoparticles can lead to the chemical synthesis of multilayer memory devices," he said, adding that future developments could create an "impressive increase" in information storage capabilities.

In related news, last month, an American team of researchers developed a way to create uniform gold nanoparticles using gold salt, soybeans and water.

 

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