Materials and Physics for Magnetic Recording―Current Status and Outlook

Abstract

Since the first shipping of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) in 1956, the areal density of HDDs has rapidly increased with the dramatic spread of internet and it has reached 1 Tbit/in². In order to increase the areal density further, new magnetic recording technologies have been proposed, such as heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), microwave assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) and all optical switching (AOS). HAMR and MAMR are very close to the mass production and further increase of the areal density will be achieved. Understanding of the underlying physics on the magnetic switching under the energy assistance will pave a way to reach ultra-high density magnetic recording with energy saving.