Scientists know how to increase HDD capacity

20th February 2009

Scientists have been struggling for ages saving neither time nor effort reduce size of grains occupied by each bit and increase magnetic stability (anisotropy) of materials â€“ all this for the sake for optimizing magnetic media (HDD, etc...) Scientists from the FZD (Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf) Research Center in Germany and the Barcelona University (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona) in Spain, discovered a new way of manufacturing magnetic media of absolutely flat surface and amazingly small size of individual bits.
A bit of today hard drives forms from 100 to 600 magnetic grains, the latter being about 10 nanometers diameter. These grains are collected on a glass plate covered with cobalt, chromium and platinum. It is impossible to reduce the size and number of grains without reducing the signal/noise ratio.
Physicists from Germany, Spain and other countries have found a way to circumvent the existing technical limitations. They created magnetic areas on the medium using a focused ions cluster. Since the ion ray can focus on areas of a few nanometers diameter, only selected small plots get magnetic quality. The level of radiation is minimal and does not exceed natural background. Thus, atoms change their order and acquire quality of a usual magnet, so, the surface of the metal film remains perfectly flat.
Using this method scientists, in the future, will be able to significantly reduce size and increase storing capabilities of hard drives