Fast and Slow Magnetization Processes in Magnetic Recording Media

Authors

• Jian Zhou, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Ralph Skomski, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow
• Steven A. Michalski, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• Roger D. Kirby, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• David J. Sellmyer, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2006

Comments

Published in Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 887. Copyright © 2006 Materials Research Society. Used by permission.

Abstract

Information loss due to thermal activation is a major concern in ultrahigh-density magnetic recording media. The usually considered mechanism is thermally activated magnetization reversal over micromagnetic energy barriers. However, micromagnetic approaches ignore local anisotropy fluctuations, which translate into a time-dependent reduction of the remanent magnetization. The effect is negligibly small in macroscopic magnets but becomes important on a scale of a few nanometers.