Grazing-incidence optical magnetic recording with super-resolution

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Data Storage Technologies
• Physics

Background:

• Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) promises increased storage capacity and data lifetime.
• Current HAMR designs face reliability challenges due to fragile near-field transducers (NFTs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an alternative method for high-durability HAMR using grazing-incidence laser illumination.
• To demonstrate magnetic switching compatible with existing HAMR concepts.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing green and near-infrared diode lasers for magnetic switching on CoCrPt media.
• Writing sub-500 nm magnetic features with laser pulses in the absence of a NFT.
• Investigating the impact of nanoscopic objects on magnetic feature recording.

Main Results:

• Successful magnetic switching was demonstrated on consumer-grade media.
• Small magnetic features were written using a large laser spot size and moderate bias field.
• Recording was unaffected by the presence of a nanoscopic object, indicating NFT-HAMR compatibility.

Conclusions:

• Grazing-incidence laser illumination offers a promising route to more durable HAMR systems.
• The presented method bypasses the need for fragile components in current HAMR designs.
• This technique shows compatibility with near-field transducer-based HAMR, potentially improving reliability.