Study of the In-Plane Crystallographic Structure and Coercivity of CoCrTaPt Thin-Film Magnetic Recording Media

Abstract

CoCrTaPt/Cr thin-film magnetic recording media were prepared by dc magnetron sputtering onto circum-ferentially textured NiP/Al substrates at various substrate temperatures and substrate bias voltages. The in-plane crystallographic structure analyzed by laboratory X-ray diffraction and grazing iwas ncidence X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation, and the correlation between the in-plane crystallographic structure and coercivity was studied. The coercivity was found to depend on both the in-plane c-axis population and strain. This suggests that both magnetocrystalline anisotropy and the inverse mag-netostrictive effect govern the coercivity and magnetic anisotropy. However, the in-plane crystallite size of a Co alloy layer was the same for any deposition parameters.