An information storage system includes a transducer having a loop of
ferromagnetic material with pole tips separated by an nonferromagnetic
gap located adjacent to a medium such as a rigid disk. During writing the
separation between the pole tips and the media layer of the disk is a
small fraction of the gap separation. Due to the small separation between
the pole tips and the media layer, the magnetic field generated by the
transducer and felt by the media has a larger perpendicular than
longitudinal component, favoring perpendicular recording over
longitudinal recording. The media may have an easy axis of magnetization
oriented substantially along the perpendicular direction, so that
perpendicular data storage is energetically favored. The transducer may
also include a magnetoresistive sensor for reading magnetic information
from the disk.