HP and Princeton Labs create plastic write-once memory

Researchers at Princeton University and Hewlett-Packard have demonstrated a combination of a plastic material and a thin film of...

Researchers at Princeton University and Hewlett-Packard have demonstrated a combination of a plastic material and a thin film of silicon as an inexpensive method of storing digital information.


The plastic polymer is known as PEDOT, a shortened version of the chemical name for the substance. It conducts electricity at low voltages, but is a semiconductor at higher voltages, said Craig Perlov, a scientist with HP Labs.

The scientists added fuses to the material, and when a high voltage is applied to certain areas on the material, a permanent trail of blown fuses and unblown fuses is left behind. The blown fuses could represent digital "zeros" and the unblown fuses digital "ones", allowing the device to store bits of data.



Manufacturers would also be able to create extremely small storage devices with PEDOT because there are no moving parts in the material. A memory cube could be formed from small slivers of the PEDOT material, and the researchers envision being able to pack 1Gbyte of information into one cubic centimetre.



The material could be used for other applications besides memory chips. Retailers have expressed interest in RFID as replacements for the barcode inventory system, but the cost of producing enough silicon-based chips for each item sold is staggering.


Tom Krazit writes for IDG News Service




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