AVS 47th International Symposium
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Friday Sessions
       Session MI-FrM

Paper MI-FrM9
Magnetic Force Microsopy on Inductive Recording Heads

Friday, October 6, 2000, 11:00 am, Room 206

Session: Magnetic Recording: Media and Heads
Presenter: A. Moser, IBM Almaden Research Center
Authors: A. Moser, IBM Almaden Research Center
M.E. Best, IBM Almaden Research Center
D.K. Weller, IBM Almaden Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM) has been used to characterize the magnetic stray field generated by the inductive write elements of heads as a function of the amplitude and the pulse width of the write current. The permeability of the write element has been quantified by energizing the head with an offset current that is modulated with a sinusoidal waveform. This current modulation leads to a periodic change in the resonance frequency of the cantilever which has been monitored using a lock-in amplifier. 2D maps of the cantilever resonance frequency show that the write head first saturates at the gap. The saturation current is discussed for different materials and physical structures of the write poles. In a second experiment, the energizing current has been additionally pulsed with pulse widths as short as few nanoseconds to measure the high-frequency behavior of write heads. Here, we observe that larger write current are needed to saturate the write heads at higher frequencies.