Imagine owning a computer with memory that’s 1000 times faster than your current PC. Until now, computers have been using magnetic fields to “reset” memory cells, but new research from Russian and European scientists show that Terahertz radiation, or T-rays, can effect cell-reset up to 1000 times faster than an external magnetic field.
What are T-rays and How do they Compare with X-rays?
Most people are unfamiliar with the term T-rays, but air travelers have actually come across this several times without realizing what it is. T-rays are used by scanners – of the type used for body and luggage scans at airports and other locations.
T-rays are supposed to be safer than X-rays because they are non-ionizing, meaning they don’t have any significant effect on your body’s cells like X-rays are known to have. They also don’t have the general radiation effects that X-rays have. But essentially, they accomplish the same objective – to be able to look beyond the visible light spectrum and see “into” objects – and people, for that matter.
Operating between the frequency range of optical light and microwaves, T-rays are capable of “looking through” many types of materials.
But the applications in computer memory are relatively new. By using T-rays instead of traditional magnetic fields, researchers were able to have memory cells reset themselves 1000 times faster.
Will T-ray Technology be Available in PCs Soon?
Unfortunately, that’s not a question that can be answered at this time. The tests were done on a weak ferromagnet (a material that can be temporarily or permanently magnetized), but they are yet to be tested on actual memory chips.
But now that the proof of concept is there, you can bet that the project will get pushed to the next stage, to see if they can get the same kind of results in a real-world setting with real memory cells. The biggest challenge is to create low-cost T-ray laser technologies that can be implemented on a mass scale.
On the positive side, since 2012 there has been a tremendous amount of research on T-ray technologies that are cost-efficient, so it might not be too long before we see the tech being adopted on a large scale, which will further bring down the cost.
If that happens, it could have a huge impact on PC performance in the future. The ability to reset themselves is the key to improving the speed of memory cells, and that’s what most electronics device manufacturers – as well as consumers – are really after.
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