Abstract
A study of a perpendicular magnetic recording transducer with the potential to be utilized at areal densities above
1
Tbit
∕
in.
2
is presented. Focused ion beam etching is used to fabricate the transducer via trimming of a regular nanoslider ring head from an air bearing surface. The transducer is compared with a regular ring-type head. With spinstand experiments, it is demonstrated that the overlapping width determines the effective trackwidth in the case of the transducer. With other conditions equal, the transducer indicates substantially higher efficiency. The saturation current values for the transducer and the ring head are measured to be above 350 and
800
mA
turn
, respectively. The performance of the transducer is tested with two types of perpendicular recording media, with and without a soft underlayer, respectively. The experiments indicate that, contrary to the common belief, the medium without a soft underlayer demonstrates the potential for achieving substantially higher areal densities.
