Depleted uranium may provide breakthrough in computing

A leading young scientist from The University of Nottingham has created a new compound which could lead to a breakthrough in the search for high performance computing techniques.

Dr Steve Liddle, an expert in molecular depleted uranium chemistry, has created a new molecule containing two uranium atoms which, if kept at a very low temperature, will maintain its magnetism. This type of single-molecule magnet (SMM) has the potential to increase data storage capacity by many hundreds, even thousands of times - as a result huge volumes of data could be stored in tiny places.

A Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader in the School of Chemistry, Dr Liddle has received numerous accolades for his ground-breaking research. His latest discovery has just been published in the journal Nature Chemistry. 

''This work is exciting because it suggests a new way of generating SMM behaviour and it shines a light on poorly understood uranium phenomena," says Dr Liddle. "It could help point the way to making scientific advances with more technologically amenable metals such as the lanthanides. The challenge now is to see if we can build bigger clusters to improve the blocking temperatures and apply this more generally.

Computer hard discs are made up of magnetic material, which record digital signals. The smaller these tiny magnets can be made, the more information can be stored.

Although it may have somewhat negative image, it seems depleted uranium - a by-product from uranium enrichment and of no use in nuclear applications because the radioactive component has been removed - could now hold some of the key to their research.