Wide-area track erasure in perpendicular recording

Wide-area erasures of perpendicular head/media at 80 GB/P were investigated. Domain lock up at the writer pole is responsible for both the sector erasure in the down-track direction and the spurious erasure in the cross-track direction. Cross-track erasure in short range (<1000 μ″) can be induced by the emanating flux from the activated elements around the writer pole that could be partially locked up and saturated under high write current. Wide-range erasure (>2000 μ″) in cross-track direction results primarily from the closure flux into the return pole. Locked-up domains at the pole tip are evidenced by MFM micrographs that explain the skewed propagation of write flux and cross-track interferences.