Lasers can increase the speed of writing to hard drives a hundred times
Danish scientists were able to achieve the speed of writing to a hard disk, which is a hundred times faster than existing devices. The method used for this is to use lasers to heat the recording surface and change the magnetic field. True, the reading speed is not equivalently increased.
The laser is used to generate flashes of polarized light and directs them to a surface area of a disk of 5 microns. The laser flash duration is 40 femtoseconds (billions of fractions of a second), which is a hundred times less than the time it takes for the heads to change the magnetic field of the recording surface in devices that exist today. Thus, the technology can increase the recording speed a hundred times and in some way justifies research in the field of thermal magnetic recording (HAMR, heat-assisted magnetic recording).
However, researchers still have to solve many problems before they start creating a really working prototype or even more so to promote the technology to the market. Firstly, the recording area of 5 microns is much larger than the floor of a micron, to which already existing devices are able to record information. It is unlikely that users will be able to sacrifice a decrease in disk space (and a decrease in recording density will reduce the volume while maintaining the size and form factors of hard drives) for the sake of even such a high increase in recording speed. However, scientists are trying to reduce the recording area to 10 nanometers, but when they succeed it is not yet known. The second problem is that, despite the increase in write speed, the read speed will remain the same. And there are no technologies capable of raising it. And finally, according to the physicist Julius Hohlfid (an employee of the Seagate research laboratory in Pittsburgh), the third problem is to create a laser capable of generating flares lasting 40 phentoseconds. Today it is too expensive.
But researchers have time to solve emerging problems. Project co-author Daniel Stanchu predicts the appearance of a prototype hard disk operating in thermal magnetic recording technology over 10 years. The appearance of a commercial product is possible in 13-15 years. If the existing technologies are exhausted by then, then HAMR has chances. Time will tell.
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via Infoworld
The laser is used to generate flashes of polarized light and directs them to a surface area of a disk of 5 microns. The laser flash duration is 40 femtoseconds (billions of fractions of a second), which is a hundred times less than the time it takes for the heads to change the magnetic field of the recording surface in devices that exist today. Thus, the technology can increase the recording speed a hundred times and in some way justifies research in the field of thermal magnetic recording (HAMR, heat-assisted magnetic recording).
However, researchers still have to solve many problems before they start creating a really working prototype or even more so to promote the technology to the market. Firstly, the recording area of 5 microns is much larger than the floor of a micron, to which already existing devices are able to record information. It is unlikely that users will be able to sacrifice a decrease in disk space (and a decrease in recording density will reduce the volume while maintaining the size and form factors of hard drives) for the sake of even such a high increase in recording speed. However, scientists are trying to reduce the recording area to 10 nanometers, but when they succeed it is not yet known. The second problem is that, despite the increase in write speed, the read speed will remain the same. And there are no technologies capable of raising it. And finally, according to the physicist Julius Hohlfid (an employee of the Seagate research laboratory in Pittsburgh), the third problem is to create a laser capable of generating flares lasting 40 phentoseconds. Today it is too expensive.
But researchers have time to solve emerging problems. Project co-author Daniel Stanchu predicts the appearance of a prototype hard disk operating in thermal magnetic recording technology over 10 years. The appearance of a commercial product is possible in 13-15 years. If the existing technologies are exhausted by then, then HAMR has chances. Time will tell.
')
via Infoworld
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/12088/
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