Computer Friendly Virus

The last thing most people want in their computer's memory is a virus. But now a team of scientists has used a virus to make a memory device, according to research in this month's Nature Nanotechnology.

The memory device developed by Yang Yang and colleagues is based on the tobacco mosaic virus, which is best known for infecting the leaves of tobacco plants. The team coated the virus with a layer of platinum nano-particles, embedded this in a polymer, and then sandwiched the resulting nanostructure between two electrodes.

When a voltage was applied, the device displayed an 'on' state that remained stable until the voltage fell below a certain value, resulting in an 'off' state.

Although the switching speed is slow compared with established devices, and the switching action is still not fully understood, it should be possible to improve the performance through further research.

(ResearchSEA)