HGST Labs has announced that they have combined two innovative nanotechnologies -- self-assembling molecules and nanoimprinting -- to create large areas of dense patterns of magnetic islands only 10 billionths of a meter (10 nanometers) wide. These features are only about 50 atoms wide and some 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.
“As creators of the original hard disk drive, we are proud to continue our heritage of innovation with today’s nanotechnology advance. The emerging techniques of self-assembling molecules and nanoimprinting utilised at the HGST Labs will have an enormous impact on nanoscale manufacturing, enabling bit-patterned media to become a cost-effective means of increasing data densities in magnetic hard disk drives before the end of the decade,” said Currie Munce, Vice President, HGST Research.
HGST’s discoveries in nanolithography overcome the increasing challenges associated with photolithography. Long the preferred technology among the semiconductor industry for achieving successively smaller circuit features using traditional ever-shorter wavelengths of light, improved optics, masks, photosensitive materials and clever techniques, photolithography advancements have slowed as ultraviolet light sources have become too complex and expensive.
