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Thermomechanical Data Storage |
INTROUCTION
In the 21st century, the nanometer
will very likely play a role similar to the one played by the micrometer in the
20th century The nanometer scale will presumably pervade the field of data storage.
In magnetic storage today, there is no clear-cut way to achieve the nanometer
scale in all three dimensions. The basis for storage in the 21st century might
still be magnetism. Within a few years, however, magnetic storage technology will
arrive at a stage of its exciting and successful evolution at which fundamental
changes are likely to occur when current storage technology hits the well-known
superparamagnetic limit. Several ideas have been proposed on how to overcome this
limit. One such proposal involves the use of patterned magnetic media. Other proposals
call for totally different media and techniques such as local probes or holographic
methods. Similarly, consider Optical lithography. Although still the predominant
technology, it will soon reach its fundamental limits and be replaced by a technology
yet unknown. In general, if an existing technology reaches its limits in the course
of its evolution and new alternatives are emerging in parallel, two things usually
happen: First, the existing and well-established technology will be explored further
and everything possible done to push its limits to take maximum advantage of the
considerable investments made. Then, when the possibilities for improvements have
been exhausted, the technology may still survive for certain niche applications,
but the emerging technology will take over, opening up new perspectives and new
directions. THERMOMECHANICAL
AFM DATA STORAGE
In recent years, AFM thermomechanical recording in polymer storage media has undergone
extensive modifications mainly with respect to the integration of sensors and
heaters designed to enhance simplicity and to increase data rate and storage density.
Using these heater cantilevers, high storage density and data rates have been
achieved. Let us now describe the storage operations in detail. DATA
WRITING Thermomechanical
writing is a combination of applying a local force by the cantilever/tip to the
polymer layer, and softening it by local heating. Initially, the heat transfer
from the tip to the polymer through the small contact area is very poor and improves
as the contact area increases. This means the tip must be heated to a relatively
high temperature (about 400oC) to initiate the softening. Once softening has commenced,
the tip is pressed into the polymer, which increases the heat transfer to the
polymer, increases the volume of softened polymer, and hence increases the bit
size. Our rough estimates indicate that at the beginning of the writing process
only about 0.2% of the heating power is used in the very small contact zone (10-40
nm2) to soften the polymer locally, whereas about 80% is lost through the cantilever
legs to the chip body and about 20% is radiated from the heater platform through
the air gap to the medium/substrate. After softening has started and the contact
area has increased, the heating power available for generating the indentations
increases by at least ten times to become 2% or more of the total heating power.
With this highly nonlinear heat transfer mechanism it is very difficult to achieve
small tip penetration and hence small bit sizes as well as to control and reproduce
the thermomechanical writing process. This situation can be improved if the thermal
conductivity of the substrate is increased, and if the depth of tip penetration
is limited. These characteristics can be improved by the use of very thin polymer
layers deposited on Si substrates as shown in figure 1.The hard Si substrate prevents
the tip from penetrating farther than the film thickness, and it enables more
rapid transport of heat away from the heated region, as Si is a much better conductor
of heat than the polymer. By coating Si substrates with a 40-nm film of polymethylmethacrylate
(PMMA) bit sizes ranging between 10 and 50 nm is achieved. However, this causes
increased tip wear, probably caused by the contact between Si tip and Si substrate
during writing. Therefore a 70-nm layer of cross linked photoresist (SU-8) was
introduced between the Si substrate and the PMMA film to act as a softer penetration
stop that avoids tip wear, but remains thermally stable.
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