Effect of Thermal Fluctuations on the Performance of Particulate Media

Micromagnetic simulations are used to evaluate the effect of thermal fluctuations on the performance of perpendicular BaFe media. The write simulations are performed using a highly efficient particle micromagnetic solver running on graphics processing units. Thermal effects are found to reduce the field required to write optimally the medium, in agreement with the decay of the medium mean switching field with temperature. Thermal fluctuations also affect the system write performance: a broadband signal-to-noise ratio (BB-SNR) loss of several decibels is observed for a recording temperature of 400 K compared to the 0 K case. The SNR correlates with the increase of the written transition width and relates to the broadening of the medium switching field distribution at increasing recording temperatures. The presented results are also relevant for understanding thermal effects in granular media used in magnetic recording.