Transversal recording on radially anisotropic disc

Transversal recording has been described in the sixties, as a promising mode to achieve high density magnetic recording [1]. Because of the improvements in longitudinal and vertical recording introduced by thin film technologies for heads and media, research labs took no further interest in this transversal mode, partly due also to the fact that media and heads were not available at that time. However technological advances of recent years such as the attainment of high B(H) loop squareness for amorphous or crystallized magnetic alloys such as CoxSm1-x[2] and the capability of conventional ferrite heads to record vertical bits on a strongly anisotropic medium [3] allow us to assert that transversal magnetic recording (TMR) can be developed today. This paper describes recent studies for a radially anisotropic disc on a new TMR system. Experimental results on Co-Sm are presented, and the complementary features between the transversal mode and both vertical and longitudinal magnetic recording are discussed.