Nanotechnology: a Data Storage Perspective

The exponential increase in areal density of recording of magnetic storage devices has reduced the recorded bit size to nano length scale. This has profound implications on all aspects of the storage system including recording device modeling, materials, fabrication, metrology, characterization, and tribology of the head-disk interface. In this paper, the impact of nanotechnology in extending the data storage device storage systems is explored with an emphasis on the fabrication and characterization of nanolayers and structures.