A tiny laser beam could make computer memory 1

Scientists at UC San Diego have developed a surprising new way to store digital information using light instead of magnets, potentially paving the way for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient memory devices. By precisely shaping and shrinking an ultrafast laser beam, researchers demonstrated that they could switch magnetic states in a material, the basic process used to write digital data. The technique could potentially operate more than 1,000 times faster than conventional magnetic switching methods.

A tiny laser beam could make computer memory 1,000 times faster. The research, conducted by engineers at the University of California San Diego, was published in the journal Nature Communications. Modern hard drives and other storage systems rely on tiny magnetic regions to encode digital information as 1s and 0s.

Writing new data usually involves applying an external magnetic field to change the orientation of these regions. This process consumes considerable energy and places limits on how quickly information can be recorded. The UC San Diego team has demonstrated an alternative that uses light to change these magnetic states, a technique known as optical switching.