Spray-on memory could give flexibility to digital storage

Analogous to a 4-bit flash drive, the device is said to be the first fully-printed digital memory that would be suitable for practical use in electronics such as environmental sensors or RFID tags. Jet-printing the device at relatively low temperatures means it could be used to build programmable electronic devices on pliant materials including paper and plastic.

"We have all of the parameters that would allow this to be used for a practical application, and we've even done our own little demonstration using LEDs," said Duke graduate student Matthew Catenacci, who describes the device in a paper published online in the Journal of Electronic Materials.

At the core of the postage stamp-sized new device is a new copper-nanowire-based printable material that can store digital information.

"Memory is kind of an abstract thing, but essentially it is a series of ones and zeros which you can use to encode information," said Benjamin Wiley, an associate professor of chemistry at Duke and an author on the paper.