Optimization of perpendicular recording on exchange coupled composite media

Abstract

Using micromagnetic modeling, the recording performance of exchange coupled composite (ECC) media with perpendicular heads was systematically studied. The simulations indicated that the switching field angular dependency of ECC media is similar to the continuous media switching behavior. By tuning the magnetic properties of the soft∕hard layers, it was found that a soft layer with high saturation magnetization and low anisotropy energy caused large dc noise and unfavorable Adjacent Track Erasure (ATE) performance in recording, which is mainly due to the small nucleation field. A quantitative optimization of ECC media was given. Recording with different head designs on ECC media was also evaluated and this showed that large head field gradients at both the trailing edge and track edges are crucial to the implementation of ECC media at high recording areal density.