In late-2003, hard disk drives have storage densities in excess of 50 Gbits/in2, which will increase to about 1 Tbit/in2 within the next five years. In order to attain this storage density, the separation between the read-write head and the magnetic layer cannot be more than 5.0 nm. This creates interesting materials and engineering challenges to the manufacturing of such systems. One key challenge is the development of overcoats that are used to protect the disk and head surfaces from wear and corrosion. The thickness of this coating must be 1.0 nm or less. In this talk, we will focus on the development, synthesis, characterization and limitations of these overcoats for future disk drive applications. In addition, we will explore the application of molecular dynamics simulations to aid the synthesis of such coatings.
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