US Patent 7585564 - Metal core/dielectric shell nanoparticle memory

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7585564.html

This patent from Nanosys may be important to future generations of flash memory which use charge-storing nanoparticles to potentially store digital data in a range greater than 1Tbit/cm2. Claim 1 reads:

1. A charge storage device or memory device comprising a plurality of discrete nanostructures comprising metal cores and SiO2 shells, wherein a diameter of a member nanostructure with its shell is less than or equal to 50 nm, and wherein the member nanostructures are arranged in a monolayer array and present at a density greater than 1×1012/cm2.