Multiferroic magnetic recording read head technology for 1 Tbit/in.2 and beyond

Multiferroic (MF) materials are very promising candidates for new technologies and applications because they exhibit simultaneously multiple cooperative phenomena (i.e., magnetic, electric, and piezoeffects). The main feature of MF materials is the magnetoelectric (ME) effect, which can be used to engineer highly sensitive magnetic/electric sensors. In this paper, we discuss the requirements of a new kind of magnetic recording read head for 1 Tbit/in.2 recording densities, which is based on a MF structure. The MF sensor operates at room temperature via the strain mediated ME effect by producing a voltage signal in response to the magnetic field excitation from the recorded bits. We calculated the theoretical output from such a recording read head assuming a magnetic recording density of 1 Tbit/in.2. Our calculations demonstrate that the proposed read head technology could replace in the future the conventional magnetoresistive read heads bringing also a number of considerable advantages, as detailed in the paper.