Engineering:Nanoionic device

Nanoionic hard drives use nanoionic technology allowing for smaller devices while doing away with moving parts and the mechanical failures which are associated with previous HDD drives. Nanoionic devices were first proposed in 1992: "The results obtained show that it is possible to form arrays of electrochemical devices with single elements ~10 nm in size in the films". The basis of design of nanoionic devices is the creation of nanostructures with nanoionic parameter λ / L ~ 1, where L is the size of device structure, and λ is the characteristic size of specific region where the property of fast ionic transport is realized. “Possibilities to influence on these specific regions < λ > in a controllable manner may appear in short sized devices”. Ion - electronic hybrid devices should be considered as a step on a way to the future nanoelectronics-nanoionics (nanoelionics) that was first proposed in 1996.

History

The first hard disk drive (HDD) was made in 1956 by IBM. It weighed nearly 2000 pounds and was 60" × 68" × 29". It held 5 MB. It . It was used in IBM's RAMAC 305 computer. As time progressed HDDs were able to store more information and the parts became much smaller.

In 1976 the first solid-state drive (SSD) was made by Dataram and could store up to 2 MB. The SSD did not become popular until 2001 when the SSD industry's revenues reached $25 million a year. The reason for this slow growth was that early SSDs were expensive. In 1978 1 GB would have cost $1 million. Even in 2001, Adtron’s S35PC 3.5” SSD drive which had 14 GB storage cost $42,000.

The idea for nanoionic technology began at Arizona State University in 1992 and in 1996 the nanoionic supercapacitor was the first device to use nanoionics. The first drive to have this technology was invented by Dr. Michael Kozicki at Arizona State University 1996.

Mode of operation

Nanoionic devices rely on the fundamentals of electrochemistry. Currently the hard drives are made up of solid materials which weigh less and generate more power; solids have one polarity for ions that are moving. The ions are what the electrodes are made of. Electrodes are key components in nanoionic devices. Those electrodes can be made out of ZrO₂, a metal which is coated in La₂NiO₄/La₂CuO₄, or Bi₁₀V₄(metal)O₂₆. Where "metal" is any metal found in the transition metal group like copper. These nanoionic devices are made up of smaller devices that are that are spaced less than a tenth of a nanometer apart. Due to the small distance between the materials in the nanoionic device smaller ions are necessary for the pathway. Metals in the first group of the periodic table are small, but they are too reactive. So there needs to be a compromise between the reactivity of chemicals and size. That is why materials like Cu or Ag fulfill the needs of the nanoionic drives.

In the nanoionic device there would be chalcogenide glass with has the metal like gold and an element for group six infused in the glass. This glass is the electrode for the nanoionic. In the oxidation reaction the Ag⁺ then loses the electron and turns into Ag. This reaction only happens when a switch confirms the reaction to happen and these switches are used for the binary information storage. That binary information storage is where all the data is saved on the hard drive. All this is dependent on the small current of ions, hence the name nanoionic, to allow the reaction to happen.

See also

• Programmable metallization cell