The effect of initial growth layer on magnetic properties of Co-Crfilms

The effect of a Ti underlayer, which increases the perpendicular coercive force of Co-Cr films, was investigated. To clarify the cause of this phenomenon, the film-thickness dependence of the magnetic properties was examined. It was found that the coercive force of a Co-Cr film deposited directly on a polymide substrate decreases drastically when it becomes thinner than 50 nm, whereas in the case of Co-Cr film on a Ti underlayer, a high coercive force is maintained even when the film becomes as thin as 20 nm. The film with the underlayer has a distinct uniform columnar structure, whereas the film without it has a 50-nm-thick initial growth layer with no clear structure. Measurements of the temperature dependence of magnetic properties and observations of segregated microstructures indicate that the improvement of magnetic properties by the insertion of the Ti underlayer is mainly due to the improvement of shape anisotropy resulting from the formation of a distinctly segregated microstructure     

Co-Cr perpendicular magnetic recording tape by vacuum deposition

The relation between the incident angle and the crystallographic orientation of a vacuum deposited Co-Cr film is discussed. Also presented are the magnetic properties and the orientation of both a Ni-Fe underlayer and the Co-Cr film for the double layer medium, and the experimental results about the composition distribution in the co-cr film. The films were deposited on a transporting polymer substrate by continuous vacuum deposition. It is found that the orientation of the Co-Cr film is determined only by the incident angle at the initial point of the film formation, and that deposition efficiency more than 50% can be achieved easily. A double layer medium with Ti film under the Ni-Fe film (Co-Cr/Ni-Fe/Ti medium), which is suitable for perpendicular magnetic recording, is produced by vacuum deposition. Auger depth profile in radial direction of the column of the Co-Cr film shows directly that there is Cr segregation near the columnar grain boundaries.     

阳极氧化铝底层对SmTbCo薄膜磁性能与结构影响的研究

采用两次阳极氧化法制备了孔洞排列有序的多孔氧化铝基底,并在其上用磁控溅射法制备了SmTbCo垂直磁化膜. 振动样品磁强计（VSM）测试结果显示,加入阳极氧化铝底层后可以将SmTbCo薄膜的矫顽力从370kA/m提高到530kA/m,并且随着氧化铝底层孔洞直径的减小,上层SmTbCo磁性薄膜的矫顽力与剩磁矩形比随之增大. 由薄膜断面的扫描电镜（SEM）照片可以看出,阳极氧化铝底层由于其自组织效应所形成规则密集的六角边形多孔结构能够明显促使上层的SmTbCo磁性薄膜生成柱状结构. 这一柱状结构提高了薄膜的矫顽力,从而拓宽了SmTbCo薄膜材料在超高密度垂直磁记录中的应用.     

Effect of Ag underlayer on microstructures and perpendicular magnetic properties of CoPt nanocomposite thin films

CoPt/Ag films were prepared by magnetron sputtering on glass substrates and subsequent annealing. The dependence of degree of ordering and magnetic properties on Ag film thickness and annealing conditions were investigated. It was found that the Ag underlayer played a dominant role in inducing the (001) texture of the CoPt film after annealing. CoPt films with a thickness about 20 nm and Ag underlayers with a thickness about 70 nm are easy to obtain a large degree of ordering and a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy after annealing at 700 degrees C for 30 min. CoPt/Ag films with out-of-plane coercivity (Hc (perpendicular)) in the range of 13.5-14.0 kOe and a out-of-plane squareness (S(perpendicular)) of 0.97 were obtained after annealing at 700 degrees C for 30 min. Ag underlayer is beneficial to enhance the Hc(perpendicular)and S(perpendicular) of CoPt film significantly. The degree of ordering and perpendicular magnetic properties of the CoPt films which deposited on Ag underlayer are larger than those of the single layer CoPt films.     

Perpendicular magnetic recording with a composite anisotropy film

For a recently proposed perpendicular recording system, a composite anisotropy medium has been developed to improve the recording sensitivity of the perpendicular recording head. The medium is composed of a Fe-Ni soft magnetic film and a Co-Cr perpendicular anisotropy film, which are successively deposited on a base by an r. f. sputtering. By using the new double layer medium, an extremely high recording sensitivity could be obtained, compared with the single layer Co-Cr medium. The recording current needed to saturate the double layer film decreased to one-tenth of that for the single layer Co-Cr film. Although the Fe-Ni layer was soft magnetic material, neither deterioration of the frequency response nor peak shift was observed for the double layer film. The reproduction with a perpendicular head was also investigated, and a high output voltage and a high signal-to-noise ratio were obtained.     

Effects of Cu underlayer on the growth and magnetic properties of FePt thin films on MgO (001) substrate

During ordering process of face centered tegragonal (fct) L1(0) phase of the FePt alloy, there exist three growth variants of axes (001) from original disordered fcc structured phase. When FePt film was directly deposited on the MgO (001) substrate, the variant perpendicular to the film plane grew, resulting in a low out-of-plane coercivity of 1.3 kOe. By using Cu underlayer, two variants lying in the film plane got same chance to grow, which caused an in-plane perpendicular alignment of the tetragonal axes of FePt L1(0) phases. The crystallographic relationship between Cu and FePt layers is Cu (100)<100>//fct FePt (100)<100>. A high in-plane coercivity of 4.6 kOe was obtained due to the high density of micro-defects (mcro-twins, anti-phase boundaries, etc.) in the film plane. This work demonstrated a way of selecting the growth variants of ordering process to adjust the magnetic properties of the ordered FePt thin films.     

Crystallographic texture and morphology of obliquely deposited Co-Cr magnetic thin films on flexible polymeric substrates

Thin magnetic films of Co-Cr have been obliquely deposited by evaporation and sputtering at a fixed incidence angle of 45° using tilted sample holders. The layers exhibit a columnar microstructure with the column axes at an angle in the range 15°–35° with respect to the film normal. The tilt angle strongly depends on the type of substrate used, the deposition temperature and the substrate pretreatment. The c axes of the h.c.p. crystallites always coincide with the column axes. A Ti underlayer forces the columns and crystallites of the Co-Cr film to grow vertically to the film plane despite the oblique incidence deposition process.     

Fabrication of SmCo5 Double-Layered Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Media

We fabricated SmCo₅ double-layered perpendicular magnetic recording media with high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy for realizing ultra high density recording. A double-layered medium with a Ru buffer layer introduced between a Cu/Ti intermediate layer and a Co-Zr-Nb soft magnetic underlayer exhibited high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, whereas that without the Ru buffer layer did not. Auger electron spectroscopy revealed that the Ru buffer layer inhibited interdiffusion between the Cu/Ti intermediate layer and the Co-Zr-Nb soft magnetic underlayer. We report here for the first time the read-write characteristics of SmCo₅ double-layered perpendicular magnetic recording media. The medium noise was small in the medium with a Sm-Co layer deposited under high Ar gas pressure owing to small magnetic clusters     

Magnetic properties of Co-Cr/mumetal double layer films

A dc magnetron sputtered multilayer (Co-Cr mumetal) film is examined for magnetic coupling of the sublayers. No evidence for physical coupling is observed. The multilayer coercivity near the perpendicular direction has a strong dependence on angle due to the planar mumetal component. The coercivity of the mumetal exhibits Kondorsky-type angular behavior. Coercivities of the Co-Cr film measured parallel and perpendicular to the field direction both decrease linearly from 100 K to 340 K, with a room temperature coefficientbeta = (1/H_{c})(DeltaH_{c}/DeltaT) = -0.2percent/K. The temperature dependence of coercivity can be modeled on a domain wall pinning theory, based on exchange fluctuations over a small domain wall area. It is shown that high Curie temperatures are needed to minimize thermal variation in recording output signal. X-ray transmission attenuation is shown to be a useful tool for determining the Co-Cr thickness in a multilayer film.     

High perpendicular hard magnetic properties of nanocomposite Co-rich Co-Pt/Pt double-layered films by epitaxial deposition without capped layer

The HRTEM cross-sectional lattice image shows that a well epitaxial growth of hcp Co-rich Co-Pt (002) on Pt (111) underlayer leads to good perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of Co-rich Co-Pt film. It is found that both the perpendicular coercivity (Hc_⊥) and perpendicular squareness (S_⊥) of Co-rich Co-Pt films without Pt capped layer are larger than that of Co-rich Co-Pt films with Pt capped layer. The cross-sectional TEM-EDS and AES analysis confirm that the oxygen atoms will diffuse from film surface into the Co-rich Co-Pt film without adding Pt capped layer, and it react with cobalt atoms to form CoO, which is detected by XPS analysis. The increase in perpendicular hard magnetic properties of Co-rich Co-Pt film without Pt capped layer is mainly due to form CoO in the Co-rich Co-Pt film.     

The effect of thickness on the texture and magnetic properties of single-layered FePt films by rapid thermal annealing

The single-layered FePt films with thickness in the range of 5 to 50 nm are deposited directly on Si(100) substrate without underlayer, then post annealed at 700 degrees C by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) technique. As the film thickness of FePt is over 20 nm, the L1(0) FePt(111) preferred orientation is presented and tended to in-plane magnetic anisotropy. However, the L1(0) FePt(001) texture is obtained and exhibited perpendicular magnetic anisotropy as the film thickness is decreased to 10 nm. Its perpendicular coercivity (Hc(perpendicular)), saturation magnetization (Ms) and perpendicular squareness (S(perpendicular)) are 14.8 kOe, 795 emu/cm3 and 0.79, respectively. On the other hand, both the grain size and domain size of FePt film decrease with decreasing the film thickness of FePt. The grain size for 10-nm FePt film is as small as 9.7 nm with domain size of 123 nm, which reveal its significant potential as perpendicular magnetic recording media for ultra high-density recording.     

Perpendicular magnetization structure of Co-Cr films

In a perpendicular recording system, a Co-Cr film as a medium is capable of storing very high density signals. Lorentz microscopy of 1000 kV TEM was used to observe the structure of recorded magnetizations in Co-Cr films having perpendicular anisotropy. A composite medium of a Co-Cr film with a soft magnetic back layer was shown by Lorentz microscopy to have a horseshoe magnetization structure. The stable antiparallel magnetization of transition in the Co-Cr layer determined the head-on magnetization structure of the soft magnetic back layer, which consists of a new straw-rope domain structure. The perpendicular magnetization structure of the Co-Cr film was found to consist of small domains magnetized through the film thickness which correspond to the columnar microstructure of the film. Since the intrinsic hysteresis loop of a Co-Cr film was shown to essentially have an ideal rectangular shape, it can be concluded that the Co-Cr layer of a composite film can be recorded by an ideal magnetizing process with negligible demagnetizing field at the transition.     

Microstructure and magnetic properties of (0 0 1)-oriented L10 FePt films: Role of Ag underlayer and Fe/Pt ratio

FePt multilayer films were deposited on Si(1 0 0) substrate with thermally grown SiO₂ film and sputtered Ag underlayer at room temperature by dc magnetron sputtering and subsequently annealing in vacuum. Experimental results suggest that proper thickness of Ag underlayer and slightly rich of Fe content can effectively induce the (0 0 1) texture of FePt films. A Fe_57.4Pt_42.6 thin film on the 8 nm Ag underlayer exhibits a large perpendicular coercivity of 7.6 kOe with magnetic remanence close to 1.     

Plasma-enhanced vacuum evaporation of perpendicular Co-Cr magneticthin films

A novel plasma-enhanced vacuum evaporation process is described for the fabrication of perpendicular Co-Cr thin films for high-density magnetic tape recording. The plasma is excited by an RF coil placed between the source and substrate and is supported by the metal evaporant itself without the need for a carrier gas. The primary effect of the plasma is to increase the perpendicular coercivity, thus allowing a reduction in substrate temperature for better compatibility with low-temperature (and cheaper) polymer supports. It is found that Cr concentration, substrate temperature, and substrate surface preparation are critical to the development and control of perpendicular magnetic characteristics. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) cross-section analysis reveals a slight increase in grain diameter from film bottom to top, even for films with well-oriented initial layers. A survival-of-the-tallest grain growth model in the high-mobility limit is proposed to explain some of the observed features     

High coercivity of CoCrTa on a very thin Cr underlayer

RF sputtered CoCrTa films (Co-15 wt.% Cr-4.7 wt.% Ta) deposited on various thicknesses of Cr underlayer (200 Å to 800 Å) for longitudinal magnetic recording were investigated. A coercivity of 1500 Oe can be easily obtained on a 200-Å Cr underlayer with low argon pressure (4 mtorr) and high substrate bias (-100 V). Emphasis has been placed on the influence of (101¯0) texture formation on the in-plane coercivity. Microstructure observation revealed by TEM shows that the grain size and grain structure were changed with the thickness of the Cr underlayer. Several mechanisms are proposed to explain the experimentally observed phenomena of argon pressure and substrate bias effects on the coercivity change of this CoCrTa/Cr film     

Recording characteristics of electroless-plated perpendicularrecording flexible disks with a perpendicular head

Perpendicular magnetic recording using a main-pole-driven perpendicular head was tested using electroless-plated flexible disks. Soft magnetic NiFeP films, also produced by electroless plating, were used as an underlayer of a perpendicular recording medium in this test. Two types of flexible double-layer media, composed of an electrodeless-plated CoNiReP film with two types of NiFeP underlayers with a coercivity of 2 and 5.5 Oe, were fabricated, and their recording characteristics were measured. A recording density value of 75 kFRPI was obtained for the medium with the softer magnetic 2-Oe underlayer, about twice as high a value as that for the medium with the 5.5-Oe underlayer     

Plasma effects on the Co-Cr deposition in opposing targets sputtering method

It is well known that Co-Cr films show a high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, coercivity of 1000 oe or above and other properties suitable for perpendicular magnetic recording media. In this report, Co-Cr films, deposited by the bombardment of ions extracted from plasma using a new type of cathode sputtering apparatus with opposing targets, which will be called opposing targets sputtering hereafter, were investigated on morphology, crystal structure and magnetic properties. It was found that in the Co-Cr films of suitable magnetic properties for recording media, the morphology changes and the degree of C-axis orientation of Co-Cr hcp crystal, Δθ50is a constant value as low as about 3° with the increase of ion bombardment energy during deposition. Both morphology and the dependency of Δθ50on thickness of the Co-Cr films deposited by the opposing targets sputtering considerably differ from those by RF sputtering. There was no columnar structure observed in the cross section of the Co-Cr films suitable for perpendicular magnetic recording media prepared by the opposing targets sputtering, whereas columnar structure is reported to be observed clearly in the case of both RF sputtering and vacuum vapor deposition.     

Coercivity variation in exchange-coupled Fe/FePt bilayer with perpendicular magnetization

The soft/hard Fe/FePt film with perpendicular magnetization has been deposited on a glass substrate. The (001) oriented L1₀ FePt film was obtained when annealed by rapid thermal process at 800 °C and a Fe layer was deposited at room temperature with thicknesses of 2 nm to 20 nm. Controlling the Fe layer thickness allowed modification of the hysteresis loops from out-of-plane rigid magnet to in-plane exchange-spring like magnet due to the nanometer scale interface coupling. When the Fe layer thickness increased to 2 nm, the out-of-plane coercivity is reduced to 5.9 kOe but the remanence ratio (0.98) is still high. The Fe (2 nm)/FePt film shows perpendicular magnetization with linear in-plane hysteresis loop. The remanence ratio is reduced to 0.85 when the Fe layer thickness increased to 5 nm. When the Fe layer thickness was varied up to 10-20 nm, the in-plane hysteresis loop shows exchange-spring like behavior with two-step magnetization reversal processes. The films with perpendicular coercivity were moderated by the thickness of soft magnetic layer.     

High-energy Co-Cr thin films sputtered on glass disks forperpendicular recording

The authors have developed high-energy Co-Cr thin-film perpendicular recording media for rigid disks. They obtained high perpendicular coercivity (Hc⊥) exceeding 2000 Oe with Co-Cr films sputtered on glass disks. They examined recording characteristics obtained with double-layered media and single-pole heads. Readout voltages were proportional to Hc⊥ up to 2000 Oe and not dependent on saturation magnetization. The authors explain the experimental results using the hysteresis curve of the Co-Cr film and the permeance factor determined by the magnetic reluctance of the head and medium. Using a magnetic circuit model, they clarify the effect of the difference in the operating point on the hysteresis curves of rigid- and flexible-disk systems     

Combined effects of heat treatment and seed layer materials on magnetic properties of CoCrPt perpendicular media

Samples of glass/Ti(20 nm)/CoCrPt (20 nm)/Ti (3.2 nm) and glass/seed (Cr or Cu)/Ti(20 nm)/CoCrPt(20 nm)/Ti (3.2 nm) were deposited by magnetron sputtering at ambient temperature or 200 °C. All samples were post-annealed at 400 °C for 15 min. For either Cu or Cr seed layer, post-annealing can enhance the out-of-plane coercivity. For post-annealed samples with either Cr or Cu seed layers, the ambient temperature growth induce an enhancement in the coercivity but a reduction in the slope of hysteresis loop at the coercivity, in comparison with that of the elevated temperature growth. With identical post-annealing and growth conditions, Cr or Cu seed layers can enhance the out-of-plane coercivity, in comparison with those grown on bare substrates. The nucleation field is negative for Cr seed layer and positive for the Cu seed layer although they have close coercivity. With the same growth and post-annealing conditions, the magnetic properties of CoCrPt layers depend on the seed layer thickness. Evolution of magnetic properties can be explained in terms of changes of structural properties of constituent layers.