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Title: Graphene overcoats for ultra-high storage density magnetic media

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [4];  [4];  [6]; ORCiD logo [4];  [4];  [4];  [4]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8];  [9]; ORCiD logo [4];  [10]
  1. CSIR-Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute, Bhopal (India); National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  2. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Cambridge Graphene Centre; Univ. of Exeter, Devon (United Kingdom). Dept. of Engineering
  3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Nanoscale Materials
  4. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Cambridge Graphene Centre
  5. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzerland). Inst. of Materials
  6. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Empa-Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology, Dübendorf (Switzerland)
  7. Univ. of Exeter, Devon (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  8. CSIR-Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute, Bhopal (India)
  9. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Nanoscale Materials; Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
  10. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used as secondary storage in digital electronic devices owing to low cost and large data storage capacity. Due to the exponentially increasing amount of data, there is a need to increase areal storage densities beyond ~1 Tb/in2. This requires the thickness of carbon overcoats (COCs) to be <2 nm. However, friction, wear, corrosion, and thermal stability are critical concerns below 2 nm, limiting current technology, and restricting COC integration with heat assisted magnetic recording technology (HAMR). Here we show that graphene-based overcoats can overcome all these limitations, and achieve two-fold reduction in friction and provide better corrosion and wear resistance than state-of-the-art COCs, while withstanding HAMR conditions. Thus, we expect that graphene overcoats may enable the development of 4–10 Tb/in2 areal density HDDs when employing suitable recording technologies, such as HAMR and HAMR+bit patterned media.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1815521
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 12, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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  • Weller, Dieter; Parker, Gregory; Mosendz, Oleksandr
  • Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena, Vol. 34, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4965980
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