US 7,446,969 B2
Thermally assisted recording system
Fumiko Akagi, Tokyo (Japan); Masukazu Igarashi, Saitama (Japan); and Hideki Saga, Tokyo (Japan)
Assigned to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Filed on May 19, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/134,088.
Claims priority of application No. 2004-149477 (JP), filed on May 19, 2004.
Prior Publication US 2005/0259343 A1, Nov. 24, 2005
Int. Cl. G11B 5/02 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 360—59  [360/135; 428/817; 428/829; 428/836.1] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A thermally assisted recording system comprising a magnetic recording medium, a magnetic pole applying a magnetic field H to said magnetic recording medium, and a heating mechanism to heat a magnetic field applied region of said magnetic recording medium while recording, wherein
said magnetic recording medium includes a substrate and a recording layer formed on a substrate,
said recording layer includes a ferromagnetic layer,
a magnetic exchange coupling energy between magnetic grains comprising said ferromagnetic layer is controlled to be large at room temperature to let the magnetization of said magnetic grains be thermally stable, and is reduced drastically to make the magnetization transition slope steep while recording, and
in an MH-loop providing a relationship between the magnetization M of said ferromagnetic layer and the magnetic field H, a parameter A which is obtained by normalizing said MH-loop slope parameter around the coercivity of the magnetic field applied region of said magnetic recording medium becomes nearly 1 by heating using the said heating mechanism while recording, wherein

OG Complex Work Unit Drawing
and μ0 is the absolute permeability of vacuum.