Polymer array packs ultra-dense data

US researchers have developed a technology that could lead to magnetic hard disks packing 10 terabits per square inch.

The technique uses materials known as block copolymers that can arrange themselves in arrays of nanoscale dots on a surface.

These could be used as a template for an array of tiny magnetic dipoles, answering the problem of how to arrange these with the orderly precision required for an ultra-high-density hard disk, the researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Massachusetts say in a Science report.

The highest areal density of current hard disks is around 200Gbits be square inch, fifty times less than that promised by the new technology.

But Caroline Ross, a materials-science professor at MIT, told MIT Technology Review that technology still had to be developed to read and write magnetic data at scales promised by the new technology.