Resistive probe storage: Read/write mechanism

Abstract

We define probe storage in a broad sense, which includes most of the mechanically addressing storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical disk drives. Its history is briefly discussed from the era of inscription, which leads to the application of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), to probe storage devices. Most of the current activities regarding the SPM based probe storage device are reviewed with special emphasis on resistive probe storage and related methods that use ferroelectric materials as information media. We present the principle of the read/write mechanism using the resistive probe accompanied by a servo/tracking concept. Such resistive probes can be implemented into probe storage devices with ferroelectric media development, which shows promise for the terabit era. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.