Simulation of bit jitter in magneto‐optic recording

The interplay of several writing and reading phenomena that influence bit‐position accuracy has been analyzed with a computer model of the magneto‐optic (MO) recording process. A micromagnetics simulation determines a minimum energy magnetization state of a MO storage film following local laser heating in an externally applied bias magnetic field. Bit jitter is assessed by measuring the length, width, and position of written domains, and by analyzing the modeled readout signal and its derivative. The influence of variation in the magnetization, anisotropy, and exchange in an amorphous rare‐earth–transition‐metal film on the position and size of recorded marks has been simulated by specifying random variations of a film’s magnetic properties in the thermomagnetic writing step. Variations in medium thermal sensitivity and the reading laser spot size were also considered. Histograms showing the effects of write‐read imperfections on bit‐position accuracy in MO recording were developed. Comparisons with exper...