UK invests in new photonics research center for data storage
Queen's University Belfast and the University of Glasgow have teamed with 12 industrial partners to create the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Photonic Integration for Advanced Data Storage. With £8.1 million in funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Department of Employment and Learning, the center will help address a skills shortage in the photonics industry by educating 50 scientists and engineers over the next eight years. Students will carry out research in both universities, spend time with industry partners, and carry out a three-week study period at The Innovation Academy in Dublin, which specializes in fostering entrepreneurship skills among PhD researchers.
Researchers at the CDT will focus on developing new products and systems to address the expanding data storage needs driven by the rapid rise of mobile devices. To address the growing capacity needs for hard-disk drives in Cloud Computing, new technology will be required--most likely heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which uses electromagnetic energy to locally heat the disk to ease the process of writing data on to it.
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HAMR would allow recording densities to continue increasing at the same rate as over the past decade. It will require the integration of photonic components such as lasers, waveguides, and plasmonic antennas into the recording head. The key challenge for the CDT researchers will be to make HAMR deployable as a low-cost manufacturable technology.
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In March 2012, Seagate (Cupertino, CA) announced that it had reached an optical storage density of 1 Tbyte per square inch using HAMR technology. But as stated in the Seagate press release, HAMR technology "… promises to double the storage capacity of today's hard drives upon its introduction later this decade and give rise to 3.5-inch hard drives with an extraordinary capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the 10 years that follow."
Industry Partners in the new CDT are Seagate Technology, IQE, Oclaro, CST Global, JEOL, FEI, Cirdan Imaging, Kelvin Nanotechnology, AHS, Xyratex, Renishaw, and Knowledge Transfer Network. The CDT at Queen's will be led by the Centre for Nanostructured Media in the School of Mathematics & Physics. In 2010 the Centre secured around £9 million of support and sponsorship from Seagate Technology to establish the advanced materials hub ANSIN. The director of the CDT is Professor Robert Bowman from Queen’s School of Mathematics and Physics.
More information on applying to study in the new CDT can be found on www.brightrecruits.com and www.findaphd.com, by contacting Robert Bowman via email at [email protected].
Conard Holton | Editor at Large
Conard Holton has 25 years of science and technology editing and writing experience. He was formerly a staff member and consultant for government agencies such as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and engineering companies such as Bechtel. He joined Laser Focus World in 1997 as senior editor, becoming editor in chief of WDM Solutions, which he founded in 1999. In 2003 he joined Vision Systems Design as editor in chief, while continuing as contributing editor at Laser Focus World. Conard became editor in chief of Laser Focus World in August 2011, a role in which he served through August 2018. He then served as Editor at Large for Laser Focus World and Co-Chair of the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar from August 2018 through January 2022. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, with additional studies at the Colorado School of Mines and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.