Hard Drive that uses quantum state

[Edward Wij]

Our hard drives are reaching the limit of memory capacity and they are studying about the idea of using the molecules and atoms to store memories.

Can information or memories be stored in the quantum state? When we heard of quantum state applications in computer, we mostly think about quantum computers.. but how about purely using the quantum state as memory and information storage. There should be studies about this.. can you share some references if you have come across them as well as its plausibility based on your own knowledge. Thanks.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Our hard drives use ferromagnetism which is fundamentally a quantum effect today.

 

[Simon Bridge]

The best path for answering the question is to consider:

Our hard drives are reaching the limit of memory capacity and they are studying about the idea of using the molecules and atoms to store memories.

(my emph) Who is "they"? Once you know who you are talking about, cite some references, you'll find better answers.

i.e.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/focus/Focus on Quantum Memory
https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/resea...-optical-metrology/broadband-quantum-memories

also discussed in:
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/27546/quantum-memories-what-are-they

The thing to realize is that a "quantum state" is just a description, at the quantum level, of the body in question. A single quantum state can involve many individual components, i.e. the quantum state of an atom includes contributions from all the electrons and nucleons and includes translation and angular momentum states.
When you ask:

Can information or memories be stored in the quantum state?

... then the answer is "that's what we always do".

But you are probably thinking of something in particular - like about the size and number of components of the quantum system being very small?
From the above references you can see it is possible to use a single atom to store a single bit of information - i.e. the quantum memory does not need to be as big as a molecule. I seem to recall that it is possible, in principle, to use the spin state of a single electron to store a bit ... though difficult in practice.

But it is difficult to know how to answer the question properly without knowing what you understand by "quantum state" and "information or memories".
The "they" question can help - where did you hear about this?