Magnetic Damage and Performance Recovery in Discrete Track Media

Author

Fan, Zhaohui ; Tung, Dave ; Ding, Yinfeng ; Steiner, Philip ; Xu, Yuan ; Thiele, Jan-Ulrich ; Wago, Koichi ; Kuo, David S.

Author_Institution

Seagate Technol., Recording Media Organ., Fremont, CA, USA

Volume

47

Issue

1

fYear

2011

Firstpage

69

Lastpage

73

Abstract

Discrete track media (DTM) has been widely studied recently as a solution to achieve high track density for hard disk drives. In DTM, nano-patterning process is used to isolate magnetic tracks. During the fabrication process, magnetic damage occurs in the resist striping process using O₂ plasma. The on-track SNR of DTM degrades by ~ 2-3 dB. We used Ar IBE cleaning process to remove the oxide layer. The removal process induces unexpected magnetic property change. Nevertheless, this process can still improve the SNR significantly. However, the cleaning step also causes track corner rounding, and results in a faster SNR roll-off at high linear densities. Several methods for further improving DTM performance are discussed in this paper, including using a protective cap layer and media magnetic design reoptimization.

Keywords

disc drives; hard discs; magnetic recording; nanopatterning; optimisation; plasma materials processing; resists; Ar IBE cleaning process; cleaning step; discrete track media; fabrication process; hard disk drives; magnetic damage; magnetic track isolation; media magnetic design reoptimization; nanopatterning process; oxide layer removal; protective cap layer; resist striping process; Fabrication; Magnetic resonance imaging; Media; Perpendicular magnetic recording; Plasmas; Signal to noise ratio; Discrete track media; magnetic damage; nano-patterning processes; patterned media; recording performance;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TMAG.2010.2079319

Filename

5676445