Ultrahigh-density atomic force microscopy data storage with erase capability
- 1 March 1999
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters
- Vol. 74 (9) , 1329-1331
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.123540
Abstract
We report a simple atomic force microscopy-based concept for a hard disk-like data storage technology. Thermomechanical writing by heating a Si cantilever in contact with a spinning polycarbonate disk has already been reported. Here the medium has been replaced with a thin polymer layer on a Si substrate, resulting in significant improvements in storage density. With this new medium, we achieve bit sizes of 10–50 nm, leading to data densities of 500 Gbit/in.2. We also demonstrate a novel high-speed and high-resolution thermal readback method, which uses the same Si cantilevers that are used in the writing process, and the capability to erase and rewrite data features repeatedly.Keywords
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