GOALI: Advancement of Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording Enabled by Time-Resolved Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect Metrology

热辅助磁记录（HAMR）在扩展硬盘驱动器的存储面积密度方面具有巨大的潜力，这使得在相同物理尺寸的硬盘中可以存储更多的信息。HAMR使用激光在写入过程中暂时加热记录介质（磁盘材料），允许使用具有高热稳定性的介质，具有小颗粒的小比特尺寸。然而，这种热控制开关带来了新的热管理挑战，这需要在HAMR设计中仔细考虑积极的散热，以确保数据存储系统的高性能和延长使用寿命。该GOALI项目旨在探索HAMR材料的热和磁性能，以开发高性能和高面密度的HAMR器件。明尼苏达大学和希捷科技的合作将激发更广泛的受众对热传递、能量转换和硬盘驱动器技术的兴趣。项目团队将在系统变化的温度和外部磁场下研究HAMR材料制成的薄膜样品的热学和磁性。特别是，该团队将专注于了解温度如何影响HAMR材料中的磁化动力学以及磁开关过程的基本机制，反之亦然。该项目的成果不仅将解决当前限制记录设备性能和可靠性的关键热挑战，还将推进对连接温度和磁化的载流子物理的基本理解。这种理解对于改善其他巨磁阻器件的热管理和潜在地推进新的磁传感器技术也至关重要。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) holds great potential for extending the storage areal density of hard disk drives, which allows more information to be stored in a hard disk of the same physical size. HAMR uses a laser to temporarily heat the recording medium (the disk material) during writing, allowing the use of media with high thermal stability at tiny bit sizes with small grains. However, this thermally-controlled switching brings new thermal management challenges, which require careful consideration of aggressive heat dissipation in the HAMR design to ensure the high performance and extended lifetime of data storage systems. This GOALI project aims to explore the thermal and magnetic performance of HAMR materials for developing high-performance and high-areal density HAMR devices. The collaboration between the University of Minnesota and Seagate Technology will inspire interest in heat transfer, energy conversion, and hard disk drive technology across a broader audience. The project team will study the thermal and magnetic properties of thin-film samples made of HAMR materials, under systematically varied temperatures and external magnetic fields. Particularly, the team will focus on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of how temperature will affect the magnetization dynamics in HAMR materials and thus the magnetic switching processes, and vice versa. The outcomes of this project will not only address the critical thermal challenges that currently limit recording device performance and reliability, but also advance the fundamental understanding of carrier physics linking temperature and magnetization. Such an understanding will also be critical for improving thermal management in other giant magneto-resistive devices and potentially advancing the new magnetic sensor technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.