A new model for magnetic recording

Magnetic recording is a complicated process which has in the past been portrayed largely in terms of models based upon the magnetic characteristics of the recording medium. The previous models have been incomplete and sometimes incorrect, and they have left unexplained many of the experimental phenomena known to exist in magnetic recording. The proposed new model is not claimed to be precise in every detail. However, it has the virtue of presenting a unified and simplified picture of magnetic recording. The recording process is viewed as an interaction between the idealized properties of magnetic particles and the idealized geometry of the recording field. The latter appears as a series of "bubbles" and "shells" of critical field strengths which grow and collapse throughout the cycles of bias and record current.