Storage of information can be carried out in many ways. Hand – written material, gramophone records, magnetic tapes, computer chips and neurons in the human brain—all are various forms of storage devices—but could you imagine salmon as a storage device?
Scientists working at the National Tsing Hua University of Technology in Germany
A thin film of salmon DNA is first prepared that is impregnated with silver atoms and then sandwiched between electrodes. When UV light is shone on the material, the silver atoms cluster together in the form of nanoparticles. By applying voltages below or above a certain threshold, it was found possible to have the material in an "off" or "on" state. These changes in conductivity were found to be permanent, thereby providing the basis of information storage in optical computing devices of the future.