E-Beam Hard Disk Drive Using Gated Carbon Nano Tube Source and Phase Change Media

A novel high speed, high capacity electron-beam recording technique using nano technology in a hard disk drive form factor is described. The e-beam source is a carbon nanotube (CNT) emitter and can be gated at rates up to several gigahertz. The planned recording media is phase change with sub-nano second response times, and data read-out by secondary electron emission is anticipated. The key parameters for generating the recording beam are described and a preliminary design is discussed in which the CNT based read/write head replaces the magnetic head in a standard hard disk drive (HDD). The technique sidesteps limits associated with HDD technology and potentially provides far higher recording densities and higher data rates than possible with conventional magnetic-recording. The NS3 nanotech disk (NTD) approach may provide a path forward for HDD's to the low nanometer mark scale.