Nanomicelles Array for Ultrahigh‐Density Data Storage

Abstract High‐density data storage devices based on organic and polymer materials are currently restricted by two key issues, size limitations and uniformity of memory cells. Herein, one triblock polymer is synthesized by ring‐opening metathesis polymerization, where the polymer contains an electron‐donor‐acceptor (A₁D) segment, an electron‐acceptor (A₂) segment, and a hydrophilic segment, that shows ternary memory behavior in a conventional sandwich‐type device. The polymers that have monodisperse molecular weight dispersity self‐assemble into nanomicelles with a uniform size of 80 nm. Each nanomicelle is composed of an A₁DA₂‐type hydrophobic core stabilized with a hydrophilic shell. Nanobowls based on conductive oxide are prepared via the template method, wherein the nanomicelles are present as independent nanoscale memory units to produce an array of micelle matrices. Investigations of the resulting nanomemory device using conductive atomic force microscopy show that the micelles exhibit a predominant semiconductor memory behavior. Compared to traditional ternary devices with a memory unit size of ≈1 mm, this innovative fabrication method based on arrayed uniform nanomicelles downscales the size of storage cells to 80 nm. Furthermore, the described system leads to a greatly enhanced storage density (>10⁸ times over the same area), which opens up new paths for further development of ultrahigh‐density data storage devices.