ASU researchers improve memory devices usin...(ly avoided. People have actually gon...)

People have actually gone to great lengths to keep the silicon oxide and the copper apart, Kozicki said. But in our case, we are very interested in mixing the copper with the oxide basically, so that it would become mobile and move around in the material.

Because it can move in there, we can make a sort of nanoscale switch, he added. This very, very small switch can be used in memory applications, storing information via a range of resistance values.

Industry has already shown interest in the new memory and, if all goes well, consumers could see it on the market within a few years.

What it means is we could replace all of the memory in all sorts of applications from laptops to iPods to cell phones to whatever with this one type of memory, Kozicki said. Because it is so low energy, we can pack a lot of memory and not drain battery power; and its not volatile you can switch everything off and retain information. What makes this significant is that we are using materials that are already in use in the semiconductor industry to create a component thats never been thought of before.

'/>"/>