Effect of Submicrometer Transducer Spacing on the Readback Signal in Saturation Recording

Experimental results for frequency response and halfpulse width of digital recording signals have been obtained for submicrometer transducer spacings, for the case of a flexible disk flying in close proximity to a rigidly mounted conventional ferrite recording head. Using optical flying heights rather than an “effective spacing,” together with a modification of the Williams-Comstock write-process slope criterion, we have obtained excellent agreement between experimental results and theoretical predictions. This suggests that the notion of effective spacing can be avoided.