A novel analysis method for noise of perpendicular recording media

Abstract An in-field magnetic force microscopy (MFM) observation technology was introduced to study media noise in perpendicular recording medium. Magnetization reversal field ( H R ) distribution of the recording medium could be mapped by this technology. We have extracted media noise signal image from recording pattern. The noise signal image was converted to a contour image, in which peak areas represented high-noise areas. To clarify the relationship between H R distribution and the media noise, we novelly combined the contour with the H R -map. The results show that the media noise mostly gets generated in the lower- H R areas, which indicates the lower- H R area is one of the important origins of the media noise. For comparison, a simulation work was also performed by introducing a model based on experimental parameters. The simulation agreed with experimental results very well.