  We introduce a new method based on the first-order-reversal-curve (FORC)
diagram to extract the intrinsic (microscopic) switching-field distribution
(SFD) of perpendicular recording media (PRM). To demonstrate the viability of
the method, we micromagnetically simulated FORCs for PRM with known SFD and
compare the extracted SFD with the SFD obtained by means of two different
methods that are based on recoil loops, too, which however rely on mean-field
approximations and assumptions on the shape of the SFD. The FORC method turns
out to be the most accurate algorithm over a broad range of dipolar interaction
strengths, where the other methods overestimate the width of the SFD.
