Thermal stability improvement for longitudinal magnetic recording media

This paper reports and discusses the effects of M/sub r/t cancellation and bottom/top magnetic layer thickness ratio on thermal stability and recording characteristics of low-noise synthetic antiferromagnetic (SAF) longitudinal recording media. It is shown that by proper design and process, SAF media with low M/sub r/t cancellation can deliver excellent overall recording performance with acceptable thermal stability. We present a unique approach to significantly improve the thermal stability of SAF media with low M/sub r/t cancellation by adjusting the bottom/top magnetic layer thickness ratio. Increasing the bottom/top magnetic layer thickness ratio significantly improves amplitude decay rate and media coercivity temperature dependence with little sacrifice in recording performance.