Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) or patterned media recording is expected to be used in future disk drives in order to increase the areal density above 500Gbit/in{sup}2. In HAMR laser light is used to heat individual bit cells, thereby lowering the media coercivity during the write process. In patterned media recording, individual tracks or individual discrete bits are fabricated on the disk surface. Fig. 1a illustrates a typical discrete track media and Fig. 1b a typical discrete bit media, respectively. In bit patterned media (BPM) each bit forms a single surface entity that is physically separated from neighboring bits in the circumferential as well as radial direction. Thus, transition noise between adjacent bits is absent. In discrete track recording (DTR) technology the bits are stored on single tracks which are physically separated from each other. Thus, the transition noise is eliminated in the radial direction but not in the circumferential direction.
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