Theory of antiferromagnetically coupled magnetic recording media

A theoretical overview of antiferromagnetically coupled media (AFC media) is presented for the case where the AFC medium has two ferromagnetic films that are coupled antiferromagnetically via a thin polarization layer. Attention is focused on AFC-slave media where the top layer governs the remanent magnetization. It is demonstrated that such media behave like an effectively thin single layer magnetic recording medium in terms of improved pulse width, while the magnetic stability of AFC grains is governed by the thicker top layer.