Thermally assisted recording beyond traditional limits

An approach to overcome the current magnetic storage density limitations due to superparamagnetic effects by thermally assisted writing was described. An optical pulse from a laser diode focused onto the back of the cantilever heats the lever and the tip. It was observed that the smaller bits were accomplished by a decrease in the grain size of the recording medium while the number of grains within one bit cell is kept constant. It was shown that the recording densities of 1 Tbit/in. ² accompanied by thermal diffusion speeds larger than 1 GHz could be accomplished using thermally assisted writing.