You usually associate the double helix with DNA, but an international research team based at Cambridge University used 3D printing technology to create a magnetic double helix 1000 times smaller than human hair. Why do you do such a thing? We are not sure why they started, but they can find nanoscale topological features in the magnetic field, which they believe will change the way magnetic devices work in the future, especially magnetic storage devices.
In particular, the researchers believe that this is a step towards a practical “track” memory, which stores magnetic information in three dimensions rather than two dimensions and provides high-density and ram like access time. If you want to know the bloody details, you can read the full text.
Magnetic helical structures form a pair, much like actual DNA. Because the team uses electron beam deposition, you may not be able to print these photos in 3D by yourself. However, we are glad to hear that they use freecad as a model.
Will this bring TB of primary storage to your computer? It may not be direct, but it is a step in this direction. Not long ago, having 640K memory and 20MB hard disk seemed to be everything you need. One day, we will review our quaint computers with 32GB of memory and TB of disk and wonder how we get along.