A team led by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) physicists yesterday announced a major breakthrough regarding a next-generation memory storage material that is expected to multiply the efficiency of memory units and pave the way for quantum technology development.
Traditional memory devices process information based on two logic states — zero and one — while their efficiency can be improved only by increasing the density of components and reducing their size, department of physics assistant professor Yang Jan-chi (楊展其) said.
To eliminate the bottleneck in memory development, the team turned to an alternative material — bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3), a material that can record eight logic states and keep the stored information for up to a year even when it is not powered or is heated up to 400°C, Yang said.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
The main breakthrough involves controlling the material through laser illumination, which helps reduce delays in the reading of data and energy consumption, while boosting calculation efficiency, he said.
No other researchers have attempted to control high-density memory material using optical means, he said.
Yang, 32, is also enrolled in a Ministry of Science and Technology young talent cultivation program.
The development of BiFeO3 largely remains at the level of academic research and the team has found that the light-driven flexoelectric effect is key to its manipulation, professor Chen Yi-chun (陳宜君) said.
As light presents alternating electromagnetic fields, it is seldom used to control the operations of memory materials, she said.
Nonetheless, the team found that the material’s operations could be manipulated when placed on a surface whose strain gradient is slightly altered by illumination, she said.
The findings were detailed in a paper titled “Deterministic optical control of room temperature multiferroicity in BiFeO3 thin films,” published in the journal Nature Materials on May 6.
The team submitted the manuscript in July last year and it was accepted in March, Chen said.
The team expressed gratitude to collaborators at Hsinchu-based National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center and National Chiao Tung University, as well as members from Germany’s Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, the University of Texas at Arlington and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of New South Wales.
While more time is needed before the technology becomes commercially applicable, its discovery brings the nation a step closer to quantum computing technology, which would require highly efficient calculating units, NCKU vice president for research and development Hsieh Sun-yuan (謝孫源) said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods