Atomic Scale Manufacturing and Testing of Bit Patterned Media for Magnetic Recording by Aberration Corrected Electron Beam

Description

The exponential increase in demand for high capacity of digital data storage in information technology requires a constant search for new approaches. Bit pattern media (BPM) is a potential future hard disk drive technology to record data in magnetic islands as one bit per island. However, even though there is enormous progress in lithography and self-assembly techniques, it is still challenging to create BPM with areal densities of above 5 Tbit/in2, as for this, a bit pitch of higher than 12 nm has to be achieved. The objective of this project is to develop the proof-of-principle manufacturing technique by using atomic-sized aberration-corrected electron beam for achieving the BPM with a bit pitch of 8 nm and an information bit of 4 nm by 4 nm. The ferrimagnetic information bits separated and exchange-coupled by antiferromagnetic materials will be fabricated to increase the BPM thermal stability limited by superparamagnetic effects. The magnetic testing method of electron magnetic circular dichroism with 2 nm spatial resolution will be developed to understand magnetization reversal of single bit and interplay between adjacent bits. Our manufacturing technique will pave the new path for the BPM with ultrahigh areal density compared to any other currently available techniques.