SNR Impact of Media Anisotropy Near Curie Temperature in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

Heat-assisted magnetic recording utilizes material with drastically changing crystalline anisotropy during the heating and cooling process. In this paper, the impact of media anisotropy near Curie temperature on medium signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is systematically studied. Results show that the combination of proper gradient of anisotropy versus temperature and thermal profile is crucial to achieving satisfactory SNR and recording areal density.