Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource

Speaker: Tiffany Santos (HGST, a Western Digital Company)

Program Description

The rapid rise in the creation of digital content fuels the need for increasing the storage capacity of hard disk drives. The storage density of recording media in conventional hard drives is fast approaching a physical limit, beyond which the stored bits become thermally unstable. Heat-assisted magnetic recording is the most promising alternative technology for extending densities well beyond 1 Tb/in². In HAMR technology a laser-integrated write head optically generates a heat pulse, which locally heats the magnetic media in order to write a bit in the presence of a magnetic field. The potential for HAMR and its challenges will be discussed.