| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/S96494/01 |
| Title: |
Application of HiTUS Technology to Information Storage (HiTUSIS2) |
| Principal Investigator: |
O'Grady, Professor K |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Physics |
| Organisation: |
University of York |
| Scheme: |
LINK |
| Starts: |
01 May 2004 |
Ends: |
31 October 2006 |
Value (£): |
193,379
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Materials Characterisation |
Materials Synthesis & Growth |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Communications |
Environment |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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In the first call of the LINK ISB programme the Universities of York and Salford together with Plasma Quest Ltd were awarded the sum of 202,969 for a reduced programme to evaluate the highly novel HiTUS technology produced by the company for applications in information storage. The duration of the initial programme was one year only.In this round the same partners seek to restore the project to its originally planned 3 years duration to take best advantage of the substantial equipment spend which utilised three quarters of the original funding. In the original one year pilot study following consultation with our other industrial partners and advisers it has been decided to concentrate primarily on determining those parameters necessary for the control of grain size and then to undertake a study of the production of thin films of antiferromagnetic materials having good thermal stability. A second area of emphasis will be to examine the production of a standard GMR trilayer to establish if the first antiferromagnetic peak could be utilised in a GMR read head. These topics have been selected as they are of critical importance for the development of read heads for perpendicular recording systems.In the second phase of the HiTUSIS project we wish to undertake our detailed study of the production of suitable magnetic layers to be incorporated in a disc recording medium. Accordingly we will use the ability of HiTUS to control grain size (see Appendix 1) to produce both longitudinal and perpendicular media having controlled grain sizes. These media will then be characterised in terms of their resistance to thermal activation and the degree of intergranular exchange coupling which still form the limiting factors for all information storage media.Due to novel features of the HiTUS sputtering system in addition to the ability to control grain size an additional part of the project will be concerned with the deposition of the necessary alumina interlayers utilised in spin tunnel junctions. These devices have applications in both magnetic recording read heads and in the emerging technology of Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM). In this part of the programme the original aluminium layers will be deposited, again with controlled morphology, and using the unique ability of the HiTUS system to reverse the plasma under different energies, reactive plasma oxidation of aluminium will be undertaken to determine the uniformity of the resulting alumina layers.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.york.ac.uk |