Rare earth - transition metal alloys: Another way for perpendicular recording

Many investigators have chosen CoCr alloys or other Co-based alloys to study perpendicular magnetic recording. Although the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of Co alloys is quite convenient for this use, the demagnetizing fields are high because of high saturation magnetization and then the squareness of the perpendicular M-H loops is poor. To study another kind of perpendicular anisotropic alloy, we tested sputtered amorphous Fe 1-x-y Tb x Gd y (X = y) thin films as a perpendicular recording medium. Several thicknesses with and without a FeNi underlayer were tested. Although a conventional ring-type head was used, with a low trackwidth (20 μm) and a coil with 2 × 13 turns, 162 KFci could be recorded and read and a 1,600 μ Vpp output signal was read at 10 KFci.