Table salt found to boost data storage density

14.10.2011
Researchers in Singapore say to use common table salt to increase by 5.3 times the density by which bits of data can be stored on a hard disk drive platter.

The discovery, they said, will allow from 1.9 Tbit/in. to 3.3 Tbit/in. or six times what a Seagate 4TB hard drive has today, which is 625Gb/in. Given that today's hard drives can come with as much as , theoretically, the new technology would allow more than 21TB of data on a single drive.

The secret of the research lies in the use of an extremely high-resolution e-beam lithography, which is the process by which fine nano-sized circuitry is created.

By adding sodium chloride (salt) to a developer solution used in lithography processes, the researchers were able to produce highly defined nanostructures that were as small as 4.5 nanometers (nm), without the need for expensive equipment upgrades.

A nanometer is equal to one-billionth the size of a meter. Today's NAND flash-based solid-state drives use lithography processes that create circuitry about 25nm in width; a human hair is 3,000 times thicker than 25nm.

An example of how nanopatterning more closely packs bits of data together.