Raghunath Murali

An interesting article by Begtrup et al (Nano Letters, May) reports a simple electromechanical memory device in which an iron nanoparticle shuttle is controllably positioned within a hollow nanotube channel. The shuttle memory has application for archival storage, with information density as high as 1e12 bits/in.sq, and thermodynamic stability in excess of one billion years. Pyrolysis of ferrocene in Argon at 1000 C was used to make nanotubes with the Fe particle.