Scientists at IBM have figured out at a way to encode data onto a single atom, which is the most compact information storage ever achieved. Their results are published in a paper in the journal Nature.
Space on our digital devices is at a premium. Running out of storage space because of too many pictures happens all too often, but it’s difficult to make storage devices that are dense enough for modern life. As digital storage keeps getting smaller, the basic unit of information storage keeps shrinking as well. The amount of atoms required to store data keeps getting smaller, and inevitably storing a single bit will someday only require a single atom.