Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) media status, requirements, and challenges to extend the areal density (AD) of magnetic hard disk drives beyond current records of around 1.4 Tb/in.2 are updated. The structural properties of granular high anisotropy chemically ordered L10 FePtX-Y HAMR media by now are similar to perpendicular CoCrPt-based magnetic recording media. Reasonable average grain diameter ⟨D⟩ = 8–10 nm and distributions σD/D ∼ 18% are possible despite elevated growth temperatures TG = 650–670 °C. A 2× reduction of ⟨D⟩ down to 4–5 nm and lowering σD/D < 10%–15% are ongoing efforts to increase AD to ∼4 Tb/in.2. X = Cu ∼ 10 at. % reduces the Curie temperature TC by ∼100 K below TC,bulk = 750 K, thereby lowering the write head heat energy requirement. Multiple FePtX-Y granular layers with Y = 30–35 vol. % grain-to-grain segregants like carbides, oxides, and/or nitrides are used to fully exchange decouple the grains and achieve cylindrical shape. FePt is typically grown on fcc MgO (100) seedlayers to form well oriented FePt (002). A FePt lattice parameter ratio c/a ∼0.96 and high chemical order S > 0.90 result in magnetic anisotropy KU ∼ 4.5 × 107 erg/cm3, and only 25% below the FePt single crystal value KU = 6.6 × 107 erg/cm3 has been achieved in 7–8 nm diameter grains. Switching field distributions depend on anisotropy field (HK) distributions, which are currently of the order of ΔHK/HK ∼ 10% (ΔHK ∼ 10–12 kOe, HK ∼ 10–11 T) at room temperature. High thermal conductivity heat sink layers, including Ag, Au, Cu, and Cr, are used to optimize the cooling rate and maximize the down- and cross-track thermal gradient, which determines the achievable track density.

We have studied the transition between two different magnetization reversal mechanisms for thin Co/Pd multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, appearing in magnetic dot and antidot arrays, which were prepared by nanosphere lithography. Various ordered arrays of nanostuctures, both magnetic dots and antidots, were created by varying size and distance between the nanospheres employing RF-plasma etching. We have shown that the coercivity values reach a maximum for the array of antidots with a separation length close to the domain wall width. In this case, each area between three adjacent holes corresponds to a single domain configuration, which can be switched individually. On the contrary, small hole sizes and large volume of material between them results in domain wall propagation throughout the system accompanied by strong domain wall pinning at the holes. We have also shown the impact of edge effects on the magnetic anisotropy energy.

We investigated the reversal characteristics of magnetic vortex cores in a two dimensional assembly of magnetic vortices. The vortex lattice was created by film deposition of 30-nm-thick permalloy onto large arrays of self-assembled spherical SiO2-particles with a diameter of 330 nm. The vortex core reversal was investigated by employing a write/read tester. This device uses a state-of-the-art magnetic recording head of a hard disc drive, which allows imaging as well as applying a local magnetic field pulse to individual vortices. The successful writing and reading of individual vortex cores is demonstrated, including a switching map, which indicates the switching behavior dependent on the relative position of the field pulse with respect to the vortex core.

A highly versatile and scalable path to obtain buried magnetic nanostructures within alloy thin films, while maintaining a flat topography, is described.

An advanced scanning magnetoresistive microscopy (SMRM) - a robust magnetic imaging and probing technique - will be presented, which utilizes state-of-the-art recording heads of a hard disk drive as sensors. The spatial resolution of modern tunneling magnetoresistive sensors is nowadays comparable to the more commonly used magnetic force microscopes. Important advantages of SMRM are the ability to detect pure magnetic signals directly proportional to the out-of-plane magnetic stray field, negligible sensor stray fields, and the ability to apply local bipolar magnetic field pulses up to 10 kOe with bandwidths from DC up to 1 GHz. Moreover, the SMRM can be further equipped with a heating stage and external magnetic field units. The performance of this method and corresponding best practices are demonstrated by presenting various examples, including a temperature dependent recording study on hard magnetic L1(0) FeCuPt thin films, imaging of magnetic vortex states in an in-plane magnetic field, and their controlled manipulation by applying local field pulses.

Magnetic stray fields generated by domain walls (DWs) have attracted significant attention as they might be employed for precise positioning and active control of micro- and nano-sized magnetic objects in fluids or in the field of magnonics. The presented work intends to investigate the near-field response of magnetic stray field landscapes above generic types of charged DWs as occurring in thin films with in-plane anisotropy and preferential formation of Néel type DWs when disturbed by external magnetic fields. For this purpose, artificial magnetic stripe domain patterns with three defined domain configurations, i.e. head-to-head (tail-to-tail), head-to-side, and side-by-side, were fabricated via ion bombardment induced magnetic patterning of an exchange-biased IrMn/CoFe bilayer. The magnetic stray field landscapes as well as the local magnetization reversal of the various domain configurations were analyzed in an external magnetic field by scanning magnetoresistive microscopy and compared to micromagnetic simulations.

We investigated the magnetization reversal of magnetic vortex structures in a two-dimensional lattice. The structures were formed by permalloy (Py) film deposition onto large arrays of selfassembled spherical SiO 2 -particles with a diameter of 330 nm. We present the dependence of the nucleation and annihilation field of the vortex structures as a function of the Py layer thickness (aspect ratio) and temperature. By increasing the Py thickness up to 90 nm or alternatively by lowering the temperature the vortex structure becomes more stable as expected. However, the increase of the Py thickness results in the onset of strong exchange coupling between neighboring Py caps due to the emergence of Py bridges connecting them. In particular, we studied the influence of magnetic coupling locally by in-field scanning magneto-resistive microscopy and full-field magnetic soft x-ray microscopy, revealing a domain-like nucleation process of vortex states, which arises via domain wall propagation due to exchange coupling of the closely packed structures. By analyzing the rotation sense of the reversed areas, large connected domains are present with the same circulation sense. Furthermore, the lateral core displacements when an in-plane field is applied were investigated, revealing spatially enlarged vortex cores and a broader distribution with increasing Py layer thickness. In addition, the presence of some mixed states, vortices and c-states, is indicated for the array with the thickest Py layer.

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