Project overview
Demand for data storage continues to grow at over 40% per annum, in part as a result of increasing movement of data to the cloud. All segments of the hard drive market remain in demand and the recording transducer is critical for storage capacity. A total of 25% of the world's transducers are manufactured in the UK thus we have a unique opportunity to grow this market as demand for this highly complex nanoengineered component increases. This project will deliver smart nanophotonic materials to be used in the writer for the next hard drive technology transition using Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording, due in 2018. The very high performance demands and fluctuating operating temperature make reliable operation difficult to achieve in prototype devices today. The solution is to make this key component from smart materials which self-compensate for these thermal effects as well as providing other functionality. The UK has world class capability in the area of nanophotonics (UoS) and material discovery and optimization (Ilika) and this project provides an opportunity to develop these materials for improved product performance and competitiveness for the manufacturing business of end user Seagate.
Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups
Research outputs
Chung-Che Huang, Nikolaos Aspiotis, Ghadah Alzaidy, Qingsong Cui, Ed Weatherby, Katrina Morgan & Dan Hewak,
2016
Type: conference
Haojie Zhang, Noel Healy, Li Shen, Chung-Che Huang, Daniel Hewak & Anna Peacock,
2016, Scientific Reports, 6, 1-17
DOI: 10.1038/srep23512
Type: article