A new magnetic data storage system could offer 200 times the data storage capacity of current state-of-the-art systems. The magnetic film, devised by IBM researchers, stores 200 gigabytes per square inch.

The technology, which requires further development before commercialization, magnetizes bits on the thin-film recording medium perpendicular to the film surface instead of parallel, doing away with flipped magnetic fields from neighboring magnetic fields. It also writes data on discrete islands of magnetic material to avoid demagnetization from heat.

“Recording performance of high-density patterned perpendicular magnetic media,” Applied Physics Letters, October 7, 2002 — Volume 81, Issue 15, pp. 2875-2877