Stabilizing ferroelectric materials: Difference between revisions
need some context, what are ferroelectric materials, why they are difficult to stabilize. No one is going to hunt for them to understand the premise of the article. Also restoring TOC for easy nav |
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==Challenges and hurdles== |
==Challenges and hurdles== |
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Although stabilization is an important step towards creating stabilized ferroelectric devices, there are many problems as of yet unresolved, the two central hurdles being: |
Although stabilization is an important step towards creating stabilized ferroelectric devices, there are many problems as of yet unresolved, the two central hurdles being: |
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*A technique to densely assemble nanowires |
*A technique to densely assemble nanowires |
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*A scheme to efficiently write/read information to and from the nanowires |
*A scheme to efficiently write/read information to and from the nanowires |
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==Possible practical applications== |
==Possible practical applications== |
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Revision as of 21:17, 9 August 2007
 | This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. |
Ferroelectric materials have historically been difficult to stabilize on the nano-scale as this was due to ineffective methods of screening the charges (ferroelectric materials possess spontaneous and reversible electric dipole moments). The immense potential of this technology (one cubic centimeter of water is capable of storing 12.8 million gigabytes or 12.8 thousand terabytes or 12.8 petabytes) has remained untapped since the 1960s because of this lack of stability as the wires are 100,000 times finer than a human hair (diameter of fewer than ten atoms).
New method of stabilization in the nano-scale
Dr. Jonathan Spanier from Drexel University and his research colleagues and the University of Pennsylvania have proposed a new mechanism stabilizing the ferroelectricity in the nano-scale by surrounding the charged material with fragments of water. Spanier and his colleagues found that molecules such as hydroxyl (OH) ions, and organic molecules, such as carboxyl (COOH), work even better than metal electrodes at stabilizing ferroelectricity in nano-scaled materials.
Challenges and hurdles
Although stabilization is an important step towards creating stabilized ferroelectric devices, there are many problems as of yet unresolved, the two central hurdles being:
- A technique to densely assemble nanowires
- A scheme to efficiently write/read information to and from the nanowires
Possible practical applications
The most obvious and useful application of ferrolectric technology lies in mass storage of digital information (Ferroelectric RAM). Although the technology is still in early stages of research, it would provide numerous advantages over current (and future) alternative storage media:
- Minute size
- No moving parts
- Does not require a power source (non-volatile) to retain charge (an advantage over conventional RAM)
- Vastly superior data density
- Storage capacities theoretically larger by order(s) of magnitude (petabytes as opposed to giga/terabytes)
- High speed transfers