Crystal Memory Data Storage Developed by Filipina Physicist

A form of re-writable crystal that can store data for more than a year was developed by researchers at the Washington State University. It was Dr. Marianne Tarun, who hails from Cabaga, Isabela that made the breakthrough.

Dr. Tarun discovered that that electrical conductivity gets boosted 40,000% by exposing it to light.

Dr. Marianne Tarun of the Washington State University

It was noticed by Dr. Tarun that conductivity of some strontium titanate increased considerably. It was thought at the start that it was because of contamination of the samples.

Upon further research, it was discovered that it was exposure to light that resulted into the findings.

This discovery enables data to be stored in crystals unlike in previous methods wherein heating crystals would only store data temporarily. This will have significant effects on enhanced performances of chips in computers and gadgets that utilize store data in its memory.

Dr. Tarun was then a postdoctoral researcher at the Washington State University Department of Physics and Astronomy. Before that, Dr. Tarun taught at the Philippine Science High School from 1994 to 2006. Also, Dr. Tarun served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Physics and Astronomy Department of WSU and researched on electrical defects on semiconductors.