Relation between microstructure of grain boundary and the intergranular exchange in CoCrTa thin film for longitudinal recording media

Author

Nakai, J. ; Kusumoto, E. ; Kuwabara, M. ; Miyamoto, T. ; Visokay, M.R. ; Yoshikawa, K. ; Itayama, K.

Author_Institution

Mater. Res. Lab., Kobe Steel Ltd., Hyogo, Japan

Volume

30

Issue

6

fYear

1994

fDate

11/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

3969

Lastpage

3971

Abstract

In CoCrTa films, the relationship between the microstructure of grain boundaries and degree of intergranular exchange coupling was investigated. The degree of intergranular exchange coupling decreases as Ta content increases. By TEM observation, it was revealed that the boundary phase, which appears to be amorphous, surrounds the grains. The width of this boundary phase tends to become thicker as Ta content increases. From the result of an EDS analysis, the Cr content at the grain boundaries is higher than that in the grains. The boundary phase may be non-magnetic due to its high concentration of Cr. On the other hand, in this experiment, no boundary phase was observed in CoNiCr and CoCrPt films which have the higher degree of intergranular exchange coupling than CoCrTa films. Therefore, the change in the boundary phase may be effective in reducing the degree of intergranular exchange coupling

Keywords

chromium alloys; cobalt alloys; coercive force; crystal microstructure; ferromagnetic materials; grain boundary diffusion; magnetic disc storage; magnetic recording noise; magnetic thin film devices; magnetic thin films; tantalum alloys; transmission electron microscopy; CoCrTa; CoCrTa thin film; EDS analysis; TEM observation; boundary phase; coercivity; grain boundary; intergranular exchange coupling; longitudinal recording media; Chromium; Grain boundaries; Magnetic field measurement; Magnetic films; Magnetic hysteresis; Magnetic properties; Microstructure; Sputtering; Substrates; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.333960

Filename

333960