A team from Yale is among a group of international scientists that have discovered thin, molecular films that can store information – a potential breakthrough for the computer industry.
The scientists have produced new “memristor” devices – electrical resistor components with memory – that can outlast commercial flash memories, a technology the computer industry has sought for years, Yale announced in a news release.
The memristors feature a layer of organic, complex metal that may offer an option that is durable and less expensive to manufacture than other resistive memory devices, the release said. The discovery was described in a study published Monday in the online edition of the journal Nature Materials.
“These devices show great potential for applications in computing, especially in neuromorphic or logic circuits,” said Yale chemistry professor Victor Batista, co-author of the study. Neuromorphic computing attempts to simulate the architecture of the human brain.
“The molecular level understanding of these devices that we have helped generate is unprecedented in a memory device,” Batista added. However, he said additional research must be done to understand more about the devices’ information-storing properties.
Supported by a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Yale collaborated on the study with scientists from the National University of Singapore and the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science.
Natalie Missakian can be reached at news@newhavenbiz.com
