Synthetic ferrimagnetic media

The thermal stability and read-write performance of longitudinal magnetic r ecording media with antiferromagnetically coupled layers are investigated. The thermal stability is strongly dependent on the interaction between laye rs and the anisotropy energy of the stabilizing layer or layers. For media with two coupled layers, the energy barrier is increased by approximately 4 5% of the anisotropy energy of the stabilizing layer. Although the total th ickness is larger compared to a conventional medium with the same remanence magnetization and thickness product Mr delta, the resolution is higher and depends on a thickness proportional to the magnetization difference betwee n the layers. With these "synthetic ferrimagnetic" structures, thermally st able, low M(r)delta and high resolution media are made possible.