1996 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 105-108
The effects of recording heads on off-track noise characteristics were examined. It was found that an FeTaN head with a narrow gap and high Bs was very effective for decreasing both on-track noise and off-track noise, in com- parison with a NiFe head with a narrow gap or a merged- type NiFe head with a wide gap. It was also confirmed that, according to readback waveform analysis and MFM images observation, the fluctuations of the magnetic transition in track-edge regions for magnetic patterns recorded by the FeTaN head were much smaller than for those recorded by the merged-type NiFe head with a wide gap. It will become increasingly important to improve recording heads as their track width becomes narrower.