Materials for Magnetic Data Storage: The Ongoing Quest for Superior Magnetic Materials

From its inception until today, and for the foreseeable future, magnetic data storage on disks and tape has provided constantly increased storage density.This has required not only constant innovation, but also major breakthroughs in magnetic materials, both for the media and the read head. Today's disk and tape drives take advantage of novel nanoengineered composite magnetic materials and quantum mechanical processes.In this issue of MRS Bulletin, we present a number of review articles by some of the leaders in this rapidly moving field that highlight the key materials science accomplishments that have enabled the tremendous progress in hard disk drive and magnetic tape technologies.Individual articles describe the materials involved in state-of-the-art magnetic recording, advanced media for perpendicular magnetic recording, the materials challenges of achieving high performance in flexible media such as magnetic tape, the materials issues of read heads, and future avenues for magnetic storage beyond magnetic recording, such as nanowires and spintronics.