THE EFFECT OF CLUSTER-SIZE ON THIN-FILM MEDIA NOISE

A dynamic micromagnetic model of thin film magnetic recording media wi th generalised structure has been used to study the effect of cluster size on thin media noise. Clusters formed by common crystallography an d by intergranular exchange coupling have been simulated, and the effe cts of clustering on hysteresis and noise are presented. For small clu sters of a few grains, crystallographic correlations are shown to have the same effect on noise as intergranular exchange coupling, giving a n increase in magnetic feature size and noise.