Activation volume and magnetic interaction in longitudinal CoCrPtTa magnetic recording media

The thermal activation volume (V-A) is studied for CoCrPtTa longitudinal ma gnetic recording media. V-A is found to strongly increase for smaller rever sing fields. This trend is also continued in small positive applied fields. The activation area (S-A) at the same reversing fields are found to be in reasonable agreement to each other for different media thicknesses. The thi nner magnetic films show a larger S-A near the coercivity, while delta M re manence curves indicate that the intergranular exchange coupling becomes st ronger for thinner media. Surprisingly comparable read/write performances a re found for different media thicknesses. (C) 2000 American Institute of Ph ysics. [S0021-8979(00)83908-0].