Disk drive developer creates 10nm ‘magnetic islands’
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Western Digital subsidiary HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) says it has combined self assembling molecules and nanoimprinting to create large dense patterns of 10nm wide magnetic islands. The approach is said to allow bit densities to be doubled in future hard disks.
"As the creator of the original hard disk drive, we are proud to continue our heritage of innovation with today's nanotechnology advance," said Currie Munce, vice president, HGST Research. "The emerging techniques of self assembling molecules and nanoimprinting will have an enormous impact on nanoscale manufacturing, enabling bit patterned media to become a cost effective means of increasing data densities in magnetic hard disk drives before the end of the decade."
To create the high bit density, HGST coated a thin film of block copolymers on a prepared surface. Because of their nature, the segments lined up in 'perfect rows'. A semiconductor process called line doubling then decreased feature size and created two lines where one was before. The pattern was then converted into a template for nanoimprinting. According to HGST, it is the first to combine self assembling molecules, line doubling and nanoimprinting to make rectangular features as small as 10nm in a circular arrangement.
Tom Albrecht, HGST Fellow, noted: "We made our ultra small features without using any conventional photolithography. With the proper chemistry and surface preparations, we believe this work is extendible to ever smaller dimensions."
