Nonlinear behavior of magnetoresistive heads

Anisotropic magnetoresistive heads for magnetic recording are nonlinear transducers, unlike inductive read heads. The associated transfer characteristics are often represented by a 3rd order polynomial. Any nonlinearity in either the recording process or the read process can compromise detection schemes that rely on linear superposition for proper signal equalization. In this paper, the effects of nonlinear MR head transfer characteristics are studied in isolation from other effects by employing micromagnetic modeling of the head and read process. Effects of head saturation on equalization are illustrated.