Analysis of media defects in thick recording media

The defect behavior of thick particulate media is investigated by introducing artificial defects of known depth, measuring their signal loss characteristics as a function of frequency, and then relating actual measured drop-out lengths to the experimentally determined artificial defect depth data. The results indicate that the number of drop-outs per track is exponentially related to a "critical depth" parameter. The data can be used to extrapolate density capabilities of a given medium using a set of experimental artificial defect data taken at a lower performance level.