The data storage industry is rapidly moving into metrology realms far below present measurement capabilities. As the areal density is pushed to 100 Gbit/in2 and beyond, with bit dimensions of a few nanometers, nanoscale measurements become a priority. New technologies being considered for commercial storage media include self-organized magnetic arrays, patterned films, heat assisted structures, perpendicular anisotropy media, and exchange-coupled layers. New device geometries and operation paradigms required for read heads and magnetic random access memory (MRAM) will also play a key role in future developments. Not only is scale important in these innovative devices, but also the recording industry must now deal with nanoscale effects at the picosecond time scales and thermal changes of hundreds of degrees kelvin.

Generally available metrology solutions have not kept pace with the need, forcing industry and academia to step in with either custom metrology or trial and error technology development.

Metrology is needed to fabricate magnetic structures with 1-10 nm dimensions, to measure their chemical properties and structure, to measure the magnetization vector of each atom and nanoparticle in these structures and their interactions, to image magnetic domain structures with 1 nm resolution, to probe magnetic interactions in buried layers, and to develop modeling methods for handling multi-size scales ranging from 1 nm to 1 m. In addition, these measurements need to be done in actual operating environments and at picosecond time scales. Magnetization reversal by domain processes or spin rotation methods should be observable and thereby enable engineering of devices for high speed switching and sensing. Targeted development of the underlying metrology and instrumentation needed to make reliable reproducible measurements of device performance and materials' properties should enable the successful incorporation of next generation devices into commercial data storage products.

David K. Hermreck, 301-975-4328, david.hermreck@nist.gov

Purabi Mazumdar, 301-975-4891, purabi.mazumdar@nist.gov