Proof-of-principle demonstration of 3D magnetic recording
Schemat­ic view of (top) cur­rent­ly used HAMR and (bot­tom) three-dimen­sion­al mag­net­ic record­ing sys­tems. In the three-dimen­sion­al mag­net­ic record­ing sys­tem, the Curie tem­per­a­ture of each record­ing lay­er dif­fers by about 100 K and data are writ­ten to each lay­er by adjust­ing the laser pow­er. Cred­it: Acta Mate­ri­alia (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2024.119869

Research groups from NIMS, Sea­gate Tech­nol­o­gy, and Tohoku Uni­ver­si­ty have made a break­through in the field of hard disk dri­ves (HDD) by demon­strat­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of mul­ti-lev­el record­ing using a three-dimen­sion­al mag­net­ic record­ing medi­um to store dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion.

The research groups have shown that this tech­nol­o­gy can be used to increase the stor­age capac­i­ty of HDDs, which could lead to more effi­cient and cost-effec­tive data stor­age solu­tions in the future.

Data cen­ters are increas­ing­ly stor­ing vast amounts of data on hard disk dri­ves (HDDs) that use per­pen­dic­u­lar mag­net­ic record­ing (PMR) to store infor­ma­tion at are­al den­si­ties of about 1.5 Tbit/in2. How­ev­er, to tran­si­tion to high­er are­al den­si­ties, a high anisotropy mag­net­ic record­ing medi­um con­sist­ing of FePt grains com­bined with heat-assist­ed laser writ­ing is required.

This method, known as heat-assist­ed mag­net­ic record­ing (HAMR), is capa­ble of sus­tain­ing are­al record­ing den­si­ties of up to 10 Tbit/in2. Fur­ther­more, den­si­ties of larg­er than 10 Tbit/in2 are pos­si­ble based on a new prin­ci­ple demon­strat­ed by stor­ing mul­ti­ple record­ing lev­els of 3 or 4 com­pared with the bina­ry lev­el used in HDD tech­nol­o­gy.

In the study, pub­lished in Acta Mate­ri­ala, the team suc­ceed­ed in arrang­ing the FePt record­ing lay­ers three dimen­sion­al­ly, by fab­ri­cat­ing lat­tice-matched, FePt/Ru/FePt mul­ti­lay­er films, with Ru as a spac­er lay­er.

Mea­sure­ments of the mag­ne­ti­za­tion show the two FePt lay­ers have dif­fer­ent Curie tem­per­a­tures. This means that three-dimen­sion­al record­ing becomes pos­si­ble by adjust­ing the laser pow­er when writ­ing.

In addi­tion, the researchers demon­strat­ed the prin­ci­ple of 3D record­ing through record­ing sim­u­la­tions, using a media mod­el that mim­ics the microstruc­ture and mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of the fab­ri­cat­ed media.

The three-dimen­sion­al mag­net­ic record­ing method can increase record­ing capac­i­ty by stack­ing record­ing lay­ers in three dimen­sions. This means that more dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion can be stored with few­er HDDs, lead­ing to ener­gy sav­ings for data cen­ters.

In the future, the researchers plan to devel­op process­es to reduce the size of FePt grains, to improve the ori­en­ta­tion and mag­net­ic anisotropy, and to stack more FePt lay­ers to real­ize a media struc­ture suit­able for prac­ti­cal use as a high-den­si­ty HDD.

 


More information:P. Tozman et al, Dual-layer FePt-C granular media for multi-level heat-assisted magnetic recording, Acta Materialia (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2024.119869Provided byNational Institute for Materials ScienceCitation:Proof-of-principle demonstration of 3D magnetic recording could lead to enhanced hard disk drives (2024, April 4)retrieved 4 April 2024from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-proof-principle-3d-magnetic-hard.htmlThis document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, nopart may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purpo

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