New method 'could make PCs faster'
Feb
9
Written by:
09/02/2012 12:48
Scientists from York University have developed a method which could make PCs significantly faster.
Scientists from York University have developed a method which could make PCs significantly faster.
The researchers were part of an international team that created a new form of magnetic recording relying only on heat rather than a magnetic medium.
Traditionally, external magnetic fields are applied to a recording medium to invert the position of its magnetic poles, with the recording speed depending on the strength of the magnetic field.
The team of scientists reached the same result by using an ultrashort heat pulse and found that it had a much stronger force than a magnetic medium.
The breakthrough, which was thought to be impossible, could increase the speed with which computers process information by several hundreds of times.
York physicist Thomas Ostler said: "Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, we harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat.
"This revolutionary method allows the recording of terabytes - thousands of gigabytes - of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard-drive technology. As there is no need for a magnetic field, there is also less energy consumption."
The results are published in the latest edition of Nature Communications.
Copyright Press Association 2012