R&D: DC Current Path Optimization for Energy-Assisted Magnetic Recording

IEEE Xplore has published, in 2022 IEEE 33rd Magnetic Recording Conference (TMRC) proceedings, an article written by Muhammad A. Bashir, Anna Zheng, Alexander Goncharov, Paul V.D. Heijden, Suping Song,Yaguang Wei, Terence Lam, Rick Shi, and Lijie Guan, Western Digital Corporation, San Jose, CA, USA.

Abstract: “Energy assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) technology was utilized to ship 18–20TB hard disk drive (HDD) by Western Digital in 2020 and is considered to be the technology for the future nearline products [1]–[2]. Magnetic writer used in ePMR technology carry the DC current by utilizing main pole (MP) and trailing side shield (TS) as lead structure connected through a small stack inside the trailing side gap region. DC current flow inside the magnetic writer volume helps improve flux jitter [3].“