Micromagnetic modeling of SNR performance of longitudinal and perpendicular media with various head/SUL combinations

Using a dynamic micromagnetic write model, we have studied the spectral signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance of perpendicular media using a ring head without soft underlayer (SUL) and compared it with that of longitudinal media. With optimized exchange coupling of the media, the ring head shows good writability on the perpendicular media without SUL. At a linear density of 600 kfci, the ring head/perpendicular media essentially has no SNR gain over the longitudinal media, whereas going to 1000 kfci, the perpendicular media has an advantage of about 4 dB over the longitudinal. Comparison of the ring head (RH) without SUL was also made with the monopole head (MPH) and shielded pole head (SPH), both with SUL. RH and MPH both have about the same Stoner-Wohlfarth field gradient and SNR performance, whereas at the SNR plateau, SPH yields an SNR about 4-5 dB higher than RH and MPH, thanks to the high field gradient.