Search

Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used as secondary storage in digital electronic devices owing to low cost and large data storage capacity. Due to the exponentially increasing amount of data, there is a need to increase areal storage densities beyond ~1 Tb/in2. This requires the thickness of carbon overcoats (COCs) to be <2 nm. However, friction, wear, corrosion, and thermal stability are critical concerns below 2 nm, limiting current technology, and restricting COC integration with heat assisted magnetic recording technology (HAMR). Here we show that graphene-based overcoats can overcome all these limitations, and achieve two-fold reduction in friction and provide better corrosion and wear resistance than state-of-the-art COCs, while withstanding HAMR conditions. Thus, we expect that graphene overcoats may enable the development of 4–10 Tb/in2 areal density HDDs when employing suitable recording technologies, such as HAMR and HAMR+bit patterned media The main limitation to the areal storage density of hard disk drives (HDDs) is the thickness of carbon overcoats protecting the disk media. Here, <2-nm-thick graphene overcoats with improved corrosion, wear and irradiation resistance are shown to meet the requirements for the realization of 4–10 Tb/in2 HDDs with heat assisted magnetic recording. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]