Recording asymmetries at large skew angles

The effect of head skew on the read, write, and erase properties of thin-film inductive recording heads is explored. Using novel track profiling methods, combinations of large skew angles and small recorded wavelengths were found to cause offtrack displacement of written transitions and asymmetric erase bands. The maximum offset measured was 0.3 μm at 35° skew and a 1.7 μm wavelength. Increased side reading in the opposite direction to the write process offset was also observed. These asymmetries are expected to increase the likelihood of track misregistration errors in a drive environment