Patent ID: 8358481

Claim:
A method for lithography or pattern formation on the nanometer scale comprising: providing an HDD that includes at least one rotatable, spindle-mounted, electrically conductive disk having an upper and a lower surface, a magnetic layer having servo data pre-written in servo tracks thereon fixedly mounted on the upper or lower surface of said at least one disk, a slider-mounted magnetic read head capable of moving relative to said at least one disk and facing said magnetic layer, an electromechanical servomechanism for guiding said slider-mounted read head to a selected servo track position on said magnetic layer, at least one slider-mounted voltage-biased probe capable of moving simultaneously with said magnetic read head while retaining a fixed or linearly varying horizontal position relative thereto, and circuitry for creating an electric field between said at least one probe and said at least one disk by means of said voltage bias, whereby a portion of a target layer can be chemically or physically modified; then mounting said target layer on which a pattern is to be formed on said upper surface or said lower surface of said at least one disk, said target layer facing said at least one slider-mounted voltage-biased probe; then rotating said at least one disk, thereby aerodynamically raising said slider-mounted read head and said at least one slider mounted voltage-biased probe to a flying height; then using said servomechanism and said servo tracks, successively positioning said slider-mounted read head over a set of points on said magnetic layer forming a pattern to be transferred to said target layer, thereby successively positioning said at least one slider-mounted probe over a corresponding pattern of points on a surface of said target layer; and creating a potential difference and a resulting electric field between said at least one slider-mounted probe and said target layer at each of said pattern of points by means of said voltage bias; thereby chemically or physically modifying said target layer at each of said pattern of points and, thereby, transferring said pattern to said target layer.