Energy Barrier Analysis of High Density Hamr Simulations

Some form of heat assistance is likely to be required to achieve >3Tbpsi recording density and continue the long progression of capacity growth of magnetic recording in hard disk drives. To provide useful component design guidance, micromagnetic simulations of heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) must include estimates of the areal density of the recording system. In earlier work prepared for Intermag 2020 we investigated the influence of both near-field transducer and medium design on areal density. Exploring a range of medium and NFT designs we demonstrated that once the thermal gradient of the head & medium system is sufficient, the achievable jitter (and hence linear density) is governed by the magnetic properties of the medium. Including read-back parameters, we outlined requirements for HAMR recording systems capable of achieving > 2 Tbpsi in hard disk drives with product margins [1].