Department Seminar – Mazin Almaqablah

When

October 8, 2015    
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Where

3043 ECpE Building Addition
Coover Hall, Ames, Iowa, 50011

Event Type

Title: Structural, thermal, and magnetic considerations of FePt granular media for heat assisted magnetic recording

Speaker: Mazin Almaqablah, Senior Staff Engineer, Western Digital

Abstract: The widespread proliferation of high definition pictures, high definition video, consumer and commercial surveillance systems, data centers, big data systems, and many others all generate a demand for hard disk drives with increased storage capacity. In order to accommodate this demand while maintaining cost effective solutions, it is vital that we make drives with increased aerial densities. Increasing the aerial density of conventional perpendicular recording technologies requires high anisotropy (Hk) materials to maintain appropriate thermal stability levels as the bits get smaller. This leads to a writability problem due to the limited head fields. Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) uses heat to temporarily lower Hk of the recording media to a level that available head fields can write, and then allows the bits to cool so they can be stored at nominal temperatures with required thermal stability. While this technology offers a good balance between thermal stability, signal to noise ratio, and writability, it remains challenging to design a commercially competitive HAMR system. In this presentation, we will review the requirements and challenges for making FePt granular media for the HAMR technology. We will discuss how to control the microstructure to achieve good ordering of the FePt grains, and how to manage the thermal and magnetic aspects of the media for a compromised balance between laser power intake and media SNR.

Speaker Bio: Mazin Almaqablah is a Senior Staff Engineer of the Magnetic Recording Engineering Group in Western Digital’s Media R&D facility. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, for the design and fabrication of magnetic nanostructures for magnetic storage technologies, including Magnetic Random Access Memories (MRAMs) and Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). He has been with Western Digital since 2013.

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