Near Field Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording with a Planar Solid Immersion Lens

Abstract

In this paper we present experimental heat assisted magnetic recording results using a planar solid immersion mirror (PSIM) fabricated on an Al2O3–TiC slider. The heads were flown at a velocity of 14 m/s, 20–25 nm above a Co/Pt multilayer medium which was deposited on a 60 mm glass disk. It was found that the track width and carrier-to-noise-ratio (CNR) increased with the applied magnetic field. Recording experiments were also performed with PSIMs terminated with 125 µm apertures. This led to narrower tracks and smaller CNR values for the same applied fields compared to recording with a PSIM only.