A perpendicular head design for an areal density of 1 Tbpsi

Summary form only given. A novel perpendicular recording head consisting of write pole, collector pole and soft underlayer has been conceived and developed using a 3D self consistent micromagnetic model. The head has been designed to yield an areal density of 1 terabits/in/sup 2/. To achieve such ultra high areal density, the recording head is required to write on a 50 nm wide track. Taking the technological roadmap into consideration, the specifications were set for the medium thickness to be 25 nm and air bearing spacing equal to 5 nm. Reluctance arguments show that the presence of a recording medium of relative permeability 2-3 effectively reduces the vertical distance between head and soft underlayer to 15 nm. The proposed recording head consists of a probe type pole tip of higher saturation M/sub s/ of 24 kG, protruding from a large drive head of smaller saturation M/sub s/ of 10 kG. The design is based on the premise that the drive head provides the bulk of the writing field and the pole tip enhances the field gradient. The head geometry and the magnetic parameters have been varied to yield an optimum design in terms of peak field, peak field gradient and thermal stability.