World's smallest hard drive revealed: Record-breaking system writes information one ATOM at a time

Every time you Instagram a picture of the foam art on your coffee or leave a comment on a YouTube video, it contributes to the more than a billion gigabytes of new data we produce every day. As this number continues to increase, we are starting to run out of space to store the data; even the tiniest data storage element uses thousands of atoms to store one piece of information. Now for the first time, scientists have created a way to store information atom by atom to produce the smallest hard disk ever made, which could lead the way to much more efficient data storage. In traditional computers, data is expressed in one of two states – known as binary bits – which are either a 1 or a 0. In this new design, each bit consists of two positions on a surface of copper atoms, and one chlorine atom that can be slid back and forth between these two positions In traditional computers, data is expressed in one of two states – known as binary bits – which are either a 1 or a 0. In this new design, each bit consists of two positions on a surface of copper atoms, and one chlorine atom that can be slid back and forth between these two positions. If the chlorine atom is in the top position, there is a hole beneath it - this is a 1.