To test whether photovoltaic ferroelectric memory really worked, Ramesh and Wang grew films of bismuth ferrite on top of a metal oxide, then etched it into four strips. On top of that they laid four metal strips at right angles to the first set. The 16 squares where the crossbars met each acted as memory cells, and the metal and metal oxide acted as electrodes. The team used the electrodes to polarize the cells, then shone light onto the whole array and found that it produced two types of voltage readings — one negative (0) and one positive (1). It takes less than 10 nanoseconds to write to and read the cells, and recording the data requires about 3 volts. The leading nonvolatile RAM technology, flash, takes about 10,000 times longer to read and write, and needs 15 volts to record.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:42:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015