A theoretical approach to predicting the spatial extent of the amorphous to crystalline transition region during the probe recording process on phase-change storage media is presented. The extent of this transition region determines the ultimate achievable linear density for data storage using phase-change materials. The approach has parallels with the slope theory used to find magnetic transition lengths in magnetic recording, and shows that the amorphous to crystalline transition length can be minimized by reducing the thickness of the phase-change layer, by minimizing lateral heat flow, and by maximizing the ratio of the activation energy for crystallization to the transition temperature .
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