Magnetic breakthrough processes data 100 times faster than current hard-drive technology
February 8, 2012
A revolutionary new magnetic recording technology that will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology has been developed by an international team of scientists led by the University of York’s Department of Physics.
The method uses an ultrashort heat pulse to switch magnetic polarity, eliminating the need to apply an external magnetic field.
York physicist Thomas Ostler said: “Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, we harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat.
This revolutionary method allows the recording of Terabytes (thousands of Gigabytes) of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard drive technology. As there is no need for a magnetic field, there is also less energy consumption.”
Dr Alexey Kimel, from the Institute of Molecules and Materials, Radboud University Nijmegen, said: “For centuries it has been believed that heat can only destroy the magnetic order. Now we have successfully demonstrated that it can, in fact, be a sufficient stimulus for recording information on a magnetic medium.”
Ref.: T.A. Ostler, et al., Ultrafast heating as a sufficient stimulus for magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet, Nature Communications, 2012; [DOI:10.1038/ncomms1666]