Heat-assisted Magnetic Recording

Bin Lu , Seagate Research

Abstract: The advance of magnetic recording is bottle-necked in theory by maximum field-delivery of a magnetic writer. With the help of laser heating, media grains with ultra-high magneto-crystalline anisotropy (Hk) can have a temporary Hk value smaller than that of a head field. As a result, the heat-assisted magnetic writer is believed to be able to record the data on a FePt media with Hk=100kOe (current media have Hk <12kOe). This design opens a door to further downward scaling of recorded bits. This talk with introduce the anatomy of a HAMR system, possible transducer design, the dynamic writing process, heat dissipation, media options and state-of-art, as well as technology challenges and solutions.

Biography: Dr. Bin Lu received a BS degree in physics from Fudan University, Shanghai, China in 1988, a MS degree in physics from Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991 and a Ph.D. degree in physics from University of Science and Technology of China in 1996. From 1997 to 2000 he worked at Data Storage System Center, Carnegie Mellon University on magnetic and microstructual characterization of magnetic recording media. He joined Seagate Research in April 2000. He currently is a manager in charge of advanced media fabrication. He is also the media task leader in ATP/INSIC HAMR program.
 
Bin has published over 70 scientific journal articles, including Nature, IEEE Trans Magn., J. Appl. Phys., Appl. Phys. Lett., Ultramicroscopy, Philosophical Magazine. He holds 1 US patent with 10 pending. He is the author of a book chapter on “The Physics of Ultra-High Density Magnetic Recording”, Springer Verlag (2001). Bin has served on the program committee of MMM 2005. This year he is serving on the ProCom of Joint Intermag/MMM 2007.