Small-angle neutron scattering measurements of magnetic cluster sizes in magnetic recording disks

Abstract

We describe small-angle neutron scattering measurements of the magnetic cluster size distributions for several longitudinal magnetic recording media. We find that the average magnetic cluster size is slightly larger than the average physical grain size, that there is a broad distribution of cluster sizes, and that the cluster size is inversely correlated to the media signal-to-noise ratio. These results show that intergranular magnetic coupling in these media is small and they provide empirical data for the cluster-size distribution that can be incorporated into models of magnetic recording. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.