Magnetooptics: A thermomagnetic recording technology

Erasable magnetooptic (MO) recording is viewed as a possible successor to electromagnetic recording that is used today in high-performance disk drives for mainframe computers, hard disks, and floppy disks for personal computers and magnetic tape drives. A large number of rare earth-transition metal alloys have been investigated for use as the magnetic recording material. The properties of the films are very sensitive to the film deposition processing parameters. Accelerated life tests show that there are magnetooptic materials that do have all of the necessary properties and stability for use in computer digital storage.