Collaborative Research: Head-Disk Interface for Hard-Disk Drive Areal Data Density of 1 Terabit per Square Inch Andreas A. Polycarpou (UIUC), David B. Bogy (UCB), Frank E. Talke (UCSD)
In magnetic recording hard-disk drives the read/write transducer known as head must be very closely separated from the rotating disk that carries the magnetic media in order to achieve extremely high areal data densities. Modern state-of-the art hard-disk drives are capable of storing 80 Gbits per square inch (1 Gbit is 80 billions bits) and it is projected that the magnetic spacing for 1 Tbit (trillion) per square inch will be 5-6 nanometers. The success of magnetic recording to such high areal densities depends on the successful design and implementation of low flying and pseudo-contacting head-disk interfaces. For reliability reasons, such interfaces will also require protective layers of carbon overcoat and lubricant, thus the physical spacing or flying-height will be of the order of only few nanometers. In such ultra-low flying-height regimes, the mechanical integrity and stability of the head-disk interface is a main concern, since high-speed head-disk contact and flying-height modulations are unavoidable. Recent experimental and simulation results support the presence of attractive adhesive forces in ultra-low flying HDIs and the possibility of head-disk interface instabilities occurring when the flying-height is only few nanometers. In this collaborative research the investigator and his colleagues will undertake a systematic study to investigate the head-disk interface instability, develop models to predict it, design head-disk interfaces based on these models, and fabricate then and test them, in collaboration with the Information Storage Industry Consortium and its industrial partners.
The impact of this research will be to advance the state-of-the-art of nanotechnology related to magnetic storage hard-disk drives and to enable extremely high recording densities of Tbytes capacities. This will be accomplished by specifically designing, building and testing magnetic heads that will fly over a magnetic disk at only few nanometers distance. Specific technological sectors that will directly benefit are magnetic storage industries and other companies that heavily rely on high areal density data recordings such as information technology, civil infrastructure and others. The broader impacts of this research will be accomplished via integrated research and education programs. The research plan will advance the knowledge of nanotechnology and nanotribomechanics, dynamics and friction, while the education plan will disseminate it outside the research groups and beyond the Universities.
