TECHNOLOGY AT UH HOLDS PROMISE FOR
MULTIBILLION DOLLAR DATA STORAGE INDUSTRY
$1.1 Million NSF Grant to Facilitate Anticipated Tenfold Growth
Rate
HOUSTON, Oct. 5, 2004 – Storing the entire Library of Congress
on a Palm Pilot or putting 1,000 movies on a two-inch disk may sound
like incredibly futuristic goals, but University of Houston engineers
are working swiftly toward making them a reality.
These remarkable achievements could become feasible if researchers
in UH’s Cullen College of Engineering are successful in their
bid to create the first nanopatterned medium recording (N-PMR) at
the scale of one terabyte per square inch and explore the physical
limits of magnetic data storage in units only four nanometers in
size.
Dmitri Litvinov, associate professor of electrical engineering
at UH, is the principal investigator of a new research project that
recently received funding of $1.1 million from the National Science
Foundation. The project could enable the multibillion-dollar magnetic
data storage industry to continue its record-setting growth rate
for the next 10 to 15 years, said Litvinov, who is working closely
with co-principal investigator Jack Wolfe, professor of electrical
engineering at UH. Wolfe’s recent innovations in atom beam
lithography will provide much of the nanoscale precision needed
for the project.
“If we can make this work, this could be something really
big for the data storage industry,” Litvinov said. “The
data density of magnetic hard drives has doubled every year for
the past five years. But that impressive growth rate is now threatened
because they’re running out of options. They’re running
into some fundamental limits. Our system will allow them to extend
this limit by a factor of 10 – maybe more.”
This fundamental limit is called the superparamagnetic limit, a
predicament that will bring the industry’s impressive growth
rate to halt by as soon as 2007, according to Litvinov. The limit
has to do with the relationship between the density of each crystallite
and the magnetic and thermal energy necessary to read and write
onto the medium. Currently, there are only two options for meeting
the challenge of the superparamagnetic limit. One is thermally assisted
recording that would be extremely complicated and expensive. N-PMR,
the technique Litvinov and his colleagues are developing, is the
other.
“The big difference between current practices and what we
are proposing is we want to record on a single crystallite,”
Litvinov says. “Right now, we record on 50 to 100 crystallites,
because you need that many to have a high signal-to-noise ratio.
You suppress noise by averaging many of them. Now if we could design
things so that each crystallite is located in a specific place –
in a lithographically defined place – then we can record on
individual crystallites.”
As the project moves forward over the next four years, the engineers
plan to extend the technology to the four nanometer limit. Currently,
the theoretical limit of this new technology ranges from one to
two nanometers, only one order of magnitude above the atomic level.
Corporate partners with testing and other aspects of the project
include Seagate Technologies, Molecular Imprints, LBNL and Euxine
Technologies.
Another key to the success of the project will be the work of UH
collaborator T. Randall Lee, professor of chemistry and chemical
engineering, who hopes to reach down to the 10 nanometer scale.
When the nanoparticles arrange themselves the way Lee wants them
to, they will form a mask for use in lithography.
“The trick is getting the nanoparticles prepared in a fashion
where they’re all the same size and shape and then getting
them coated with the appropriate material so that you can get them
to assemble in a regular pattern,” Lee said. “We are
going to focus on ways to do that extremely well, using methods
at the forefront of technology. We bring expertise in nanoparticle
synthesis and coatings technology. For 10 years now, our group has
been working in self-assembled thin films. We know how to make these
coatings so that we can tailor the properties very specifically.
The challenge is to avoid defects.”
In addition to Wolfe and Lee, Litvinov’s co-principal investigators
include Dieter Weller, executive director of media research at Seagate
Technologies, and C. Grant Wilson, engineering professor at the
University of Texas at Austin.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
About the Cullen College of Engineering
UH Cullen College of Engineering has produced five U.S. astronauts,
ten members of the National Academy of Engineering, and degree programs
that have ranked in the top ten nationally. With more than 2,600
students, the college offers accredited undergraduate and graduate
degrees in biomedical, chemical, civil and environmental, electrical
and computer, industrial, and mechanical engineering. It also offers
specialized programs in aerospace, materials, petroleum engineering
and telecommunications.
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For more information about UH visit the universitys Newsroom at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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