Saturation magnetic recording process

This review of the saturation magnetic recording process is tutorial in approach. The emphasis throughout is on the development of intuitive understanding as well as the development of a first-order analysis (good to 10-20 percent) of the process. By means of treating two different functional approximations to the magnetization distribution in the medium, linear and arctangent, it is shown that the peak output voltage and half-amplitude pulse width of a transition are nearly independent of the distribution. Thus good estimates of these important system parameters may be made without reliance upon a specific model. It is made apparent that head-to-medium spacing and effective-medium thickness are of dominant importance in system density considerations.