Storage memory built with single atoms SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. and German researchers have announced the world's smallest magnetic data storage unit, using 12 atoms to store a data bit, the basic unit of information. Scientists at IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science created the nanometer data storage unit atom-by-atom, using a scanning tunneling microscope at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. Iron atoms were aligned in rows of six atoms each, with two rows sufficient to store one bit. Each pair of rows has two possible magnetic states, representing the classical 0 and 1 of binary computer data. A byte -- eight bits -- can be stored in eight pairs of atom rows occupying an area of just 4 by 16 nanometers (a nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter.) "This corresponds to a storage density that is a hundred times higher compared to a modern hard drive," researcher Sebastian Loth said in a release from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. "Looking at the shrinking of electronics components we wanted to know if this can be driven into the realm of single atoms," Loth said. Instead of shrinking existing components the team chose the opposite approach. "Starting with the smallest thing -- single atoms -- we built data storage devices one atom at a time," IBM research staff member Andreas Heinrich said.