Graphene + Cobalt = 1-Molecule, Non-Volatile Memory

I’ve written about graphene before. It looks like the single-atom-thick carbon sheets may well be the semiconductor of choice in the future. Now comes news that it’s theoretically possible to trap cobalt dimers (pairs of cobalt atoms) vertically within a hexagonal carbon ring in the graphene and that trapped dimer will exhibit ferromagnetic characteristics. In other words, the cobalt dimer serves as a 2-atom magnetic memory bit contained within a 6-atom framework.

Currently, there are experimental cobalt ferromagnetic memories based on 8nm cobalt nanoparticles (clumps of about 50,000 cobalt atoms), but a cobalt dimer in a graphene hex ring measures much less than 1 nm. You can get the details from Technology Review and from this article from the Foresight Institute. Note, this information is based on the results of theoretical research. Cobalt-dimer-based non-volatile memory is not coming to Fry’s or to your PC in the immediate future.