Probing HAMR Media Thermal Properties With Pulsed Recording

A new technique for characterizing the thermal properties of heat-assisted magnetic recording media (HAMR) using pulsed near-field heating recording with a static tester is reported. It has the advantage over traditional recording techniques of enabling studies of the 1–100 ns transient thermal configurations rather than only thermal steady states. The technique is applied to HAMR media with different heatsink thicknesses. While each media has a different steady-state temperature profile, the heatsinking differences are eliminated or enhanced by tuning the pulse duration for each media. The technique is used to extract thermal properties of the media.