Advanced laminated antiferromagnetically coupled media with high thermal stability and low noise

Summary form only given. Currently, many studies have been carried out on laminated antiferromagnetically coupled (LAC) media to further increase the areal density of longitudinal recording. It is known that thermal stability of LAC media could be increased without increasing the M/sub r/t value. However, new structures/designs of media structures can improve the LAC media further. Our previous work has also shown that that Co layer inserted between Ru and magnetic layers could increase the exchange-coupling field (H/sub ex/). We report the advantages of a new structure for high density recording. We focus on the effects of the additional stabilizing layer (topmost layer) by varying its thickness. Recording performance of LAC media with a top stabilizing layer showed better SNR and lower noise. In conclusion, the incorporation of this very thin top stabilizing layer into LAC media could increase the thermal stability while reducing the noise of the media and is useful for pushing the areal density to a higher limit.