Nanomaterials for Smart Data Storage

Demand for data storage continues to grow at a rate of over 40% in part a result of the movement to cloud

storage. Most of the world’s digital information is and will continue to be stored on hard drives. Innovation in

the read-write transducer, from which information is recorded and read, is critical to increased hard drive data

capacity. Today, 25% of the world's transducers are manufactured in the UK giving us a unique opportunity to

grow as demand for this complex nano-engineered component increases. This project will deliver a smart hard

drive with improved data capacity using atomically engineered materials to enable Heat Assisted Magnetic

Recording (HAMR). Smart materials, engineered at the atomic scale, will boost performance and reliablity for

HAMR hard drives, decreasing time to market. Seagate is a leader in developing HAMR technology and we will

demonstrate the feasibility read-write transducers with these new engineered materials. Southampton

University a world leader in the area of engineered nanophotonic materials while Ilika provides the

implementation path to demonstrate these materials at the required pilot line scale for the first time.