Step and flash imprint lithography for manufacturing patterned media

The ever-growing demand for hard drives with greater storage density has motivated a technology shift from continuous magnetic media to patterned media hard disks, which are expected to be implemented in future generations of hard disk drives to provide data storage at densities exceeding 10(12) bits/in.(2). Step and flash imprint lithography (S-FIL) technology has been employed to pattern the hard disk substrates. This article discusses the infrastructure required to enable S-FIL in high-volume manufacturing, namely, fabrication of master templates, template replication, high-volume imprinting, with precisely controlled residual layers, and dual-sided imprinting. Imprinting of disks is demonstrated with substrate throughput currently as high as 180 disks/h (dual sided). These processes are applied to patterning hard disk substrates with both discrete tracks and bit-patterned designs. 2009 American Vacuum Society. [DOI: 10.1116/1.3081981]