Materials which have the remarkable ability to assemble themselves spontaneously into microscopic structures are promising to make possible higher-capacity computer hard disc drives at lower cost. The new fabrication method comes as manufacturers reach the limits of hard disc miniaturisation using traditional manufacturing techniques and look to so-called “patterned media” – regular arrays of magnetic material on the disc surface – as the way ahead.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Hitachi scientists have combined the conventional way of creating microelectronic devices – lithography – with these unusual materials, called block co-polymers.