New Magnetic Tape Technology Yields Highest Areal Recording Density

摘要

Sony Corp. has developed a new vacuum thin film forming technology, which is able to form extremely fine crystal particles with the aim of creating a practical, next-generation tape storage media. This magnetic tape technology uses sputter deposition, a type of vacuum thin-film forming technology to generate multiple layers of crystals with a uniform orientation on a polymer film with thickness of less than 5μm. By optimizing sputtering conditions and independently developing a soft magnetic underlayer with a smooth interface, Sony has made it possible to minimize disparities in crystalline length and growth. This enabled Sony to create a nano-grained magnetic layer composed of fine magnetic particles with an average size of 7.7nm. When the magnetic tape created using this technology was measured and evaluated using an exploratory recording and assessment device, this new media was shown to achieve highest areal recording density of 148GB/in~2, which is equivalent to approximately 74 times the capacity of conventional coated tape storage media.