Micromagnetic simulation with three models of FeCo/L10 FePt exchange-coupled particles for bit-patterned media

Compositing soft and hard materials is a promising method to decrease the coercivity of L1(0) FePt, which is considered to be a suitable material for bit-patterned media. This paper reports the simulation of three models of FeCo/L1(0) FePt exchange-coupled composite particles for bit patterned media by the OOMMF micromagnetic simulation software: the enclosed model, the side-enclosed model, and the top-covered model. All of them have the same volumes of the soft and hard parts but different shapes. Simulation results show that the switching fields for the three models can be reduced to about 10 kOe (1 Oe = 79.5775 A/m) and the factor gain can be improved to 1.4 when the interface exchange coefficient has a proper value. Compared to the other models, the enclosed model has a wider range of interface exchange coefficient values, in which a low switching field and high gain can be obtained. The dependence of the switching fields on the angle of the applied field shows that none of the three models are easily affected by the stray field of a magnetic head.