Photonic Material Process for Data Storage

Demand for data storage continues to grow at a rate up to 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 process for photonic material development with improved data capacity using engineered materials to enable Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR). Photonic materials, engineered with new process methods, 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. Ilika is a leader in the area of material development and will provide the implementation path to demonstrate these materials at the required pilot line scale for the first time.