Micromagnetic modeling of soft magnetic underlayers for perpendicular recording

A micromagnetic model is used to compute the induced image fields in a perpendicular recording medium from an anisotropic soft magnetic underlayer. We investigate the dependence of the image field strength on the write head field strength, the underlayer saturation magnetization, the total underlayer thickness, and the number of micromagnetic layers composing the underlayer. We also compare micromagnetic image fields to the method of images and show that the image fields from an underlayer can be larger than those predicted by the method of images. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.