Determination of out-of-plane orientation in barium ferrite media using Mössbauer spectroscopy

The quality of barium ferrite tape as a recording medium is strongly dependent on its texture. The out-of-plane angle of the direction of magnetisation is of particular importance for the recording process due to the angle of the head field at the trailing edge. In this work 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy has been used to measure the average out-of-plane angle of the direction of magnetisation for Co/Ti-doped barium ferrite samples produced under varying conditions. The Mössbauer data indicate a significant out-of-plane orientation with differences between the samples which are consistent with texture data obtained from magnetic measurements.