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Spin valves are essential building blocks in the magnetic sensors of read heads in hard disk drives. They consist of two magnetic layers separated by a non-magnetic layer and act as valves for electrons depending on the relative alignment of the magnetization (spin) in the magnetic layers. With the continuous push to boost the storage density of disk drives, it has become increasingly important to shield each individual sensor from the magnetic flux of adjacent bits

There’s been a lot of confusion and concern about radiation in the past few weeks. As part of the Building a Better Explainer project at NYU’s Studio 20 , we decided to create a visual explainer of radiation levels, inspired by some recent presentations over at XKCD and Information is Beautiful .