Reduction of media noise in thin film metal media by lamination

The properties of laminated films of longitudinal Co-alloy media have been investigated. Significant reductions in the media noise are observed compared with single-layer films of the same total thickness, while the signal amplitude is unaffected. There are at least two reasons for this improved performance. Thin media layers exhibit inherently better signal-to-media-noise ratios, which are retained when several thin films are separated by nonmagnetic interlayers. A laminated media structure also offers a media-noise advantage since noise sources in the individual magnetic layers can be independent of one another. It is concluded that lamination can be used to improve the noise performance of metal-film media by simply repeating known process steps