Microwave-assisted shingled magnetic recording simulations on an exchange-coupled composite medium

Abstract The potential of microwave-assisted magnetic recording combined with the shingled recording scheme has been studied by simulating read/write processes on exchange-coupled composite media focusing on recording characteristics in the cross-track direction. Microwave fields enhance writability, especially at the track edge, resulting in lower noise and higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which enables higher track density in the shingled recording scheme. Read/write simulations of microwave-assisted shingled recording achieve 1.4 Mtracks/in. while retaining high SNR. Further increases in SNR and track density will require either a narrower reader or track edge noise reduction.