Abstract
Research has been done on various ways of reducing noise in the fabrication of thin-film magnetic recording media. Our approach is based on simultaneous sputtering of SiO2 and Co-Pt on a Cr underlayer at high Ar pressure and at room temperature. The resulting film was composed of fine magnetic grains less than 10 nm in diameter, isolated from each other by SiO2-rich regions. These fine magnetic grains formed clusters with a diameter of about 30 nm, which grew on top of single Cr columnar grains and were spatially separated from other clusters. The angular dependence of the coercivity suggested that these clusters were more magnetically isolated from each other, with a more coherent magnetization mode, than films deposited at a lower Ar pressure atmosphere or films not composed of SiO2. As a result, our film displayed lower noise characteristics.
