] Mohanty, an assistant professor in BU%u2019s Department
] of Physics, has carved tiny switches out of silicon,
] fabricating mechanical switches that are thousands of
] times smaller than a human hair.
]
]
] When put through their paces as data storage tools, these
] nano-sized devices were capable of functioning at
] densities that far exceed the physical limitations of
] electromagnetic systems and could retrieve information at
] speeds that cruise in the megahertz and gigahertz ranges,
] millions and billions of cycles per second, respectively.
]