Computer Memory Could Increase Fivefold From UT Research

AUSTIN, Texas — The storage capacity of hard disk drives could increase by a factor of five thanks to processes developed by chemists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin. The researchers' technique, which relies on self-organizing substances known as block copolymers, was described this week in an article in Science . It's also being given a real-world test run in collaboration with HGST , one of the world's leading innovators in disk drives. "In the last few decades there's been a steady, exponential increase in the amount of information that can be stored on memory devices, but things have now reached a point where we're running up against physical limits," said C. Grant Willson , professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair in the Cockrell School of Engineering. With current production methods, zeroes and ones are written as magnetic dots on a continuous metal surface. The closer together the dots are, the can be stored in the same area. But that tactic has been pretty much maxed out.