Ilika hard drive project wins Innovate UK grant
Future hard drive technology received a boost on Thursday, with the announcement from Ilika that it was taking part in a two-year project, along with Seagate and the University of Southampton (UoS), that had been awarded a £374,000 grant by Innovate UK.
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The AIM-traded accelerated materials innovation company said Seagate was the market leader in magnetic recording used in hard disk drive technology, most commonly used in laptops. It said UoS had developed world-class expertise in the area of nano-photonics - the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light.
Ilika confirmed £194,000 of the grant would be used to fund project activities at the company.
The objective of the 'Nanomaterials for Smart Data Storage' project was to provide a demonstration of 2D materials for Seagate's heat-assisted magnetic recording applications.
2D materials are crystalline materials consisting of a single layer of atoms.
In the project, materials with superior nanophotonic properties were being developed to achieve improved hard drive performance and reliability.
The materials must operate at temperatures of up to 300 degrees Celcius for thousands of hours, requiring extremely robust nanomaterials that had specific photonic properties, allowing light energy to be conducted.
"The UK has world class capability in the area of hard drive technology, nanophotonics and material discovery and optimisation," said Ilika CEO Graeme Purdy.
"This project provides an opportunity to develop these materials for improved product performance and competitiveness for the manufacturing business of end user Seagate," he added.