Effect of Cr underlayer on obliquely sputtered Co on PET substrate

Summary form only given. Oblique deposition of magnetic films is often used for magnetic recording tape. The well known materials are Co and CoNi deposited by reactive evaporation with O/sub 2/ directly on a polymer substrate. However, for the next generation of high density media the desirable magnetic properties have not been achieved by this method. In our previous work, oblique sputtering of Co on a PET substrate resulted in a relative low H/sub c/, which mainly originates from shape anisotropy, as the films only consist of the fcc Co phase. In this paper, properties of sputtered Co on a Cr underlayer at an incident angle of 70° are reported. Microstructure and magnetic analyses of the Co layer reveal a strong influence of the Cr underlayer.