Role of Bit Patterned Media in Future of Hard Disk Drives

The hard disk industry has traditionally stayed competitive by competing on the means of price alone by cutting down aggressively on cost via increase of areal density. Continuing increases in the areal density of hard disk drives will be limited by thermal instability of the thin film medium and is estimated to be limited to about 500Gb/in2 . Patterned media, in which data are stored in an array of single.domain magnetic particles, have been suggested as a means to overcome this limitation and to enable recording densities greater than ITb/in2. However, the implementation of patterned media requires fabrication of sub-50-nm features over large areas and the design of recording systems that differ from those used in conventional hard drives. This report discusses the challenges facing patterned media, the fabrication of arrays of small magnetic particles and their magnetic properties. The practical implementation of patterned media recording schemes is assessed via technology estimates and cost analysis. Thesis Supervisor: Caroline Anne Ross Title: Pr'ofssor of Materials Science and Engineering