Effect of Head Field Gradient on Nonlinear Transition Shift in Perpendicular Recording

A modified test of the fifth harmonic measurement for nonlinear transition shift (NLTS) is used to study the influence of the head field properties on some parametric data and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performances in perpendicular recording. Particularly, the NLTS properties of two different writer head designs were evaluated in connection with their recording performances. It was revealed that the NLTS properties are sensitive to both the head field strength and head field gradient and thus affect the SNR and bit error rate (BER) performances strongly, especially at high linear density.