A Novel Perpendicular Recording Medium with a Magnetic Intermediate Layer

In this paper, we will describe a novel approach towards reducing the intermediate layer thickness in a non-physical way in perpendicular recording media. We use a magnetic material made of a CoCr alloy as one of the intermediate layers. Being a magnetic layer, this intermediate layer would be helpful during the writing process in passing the flux from head to SUL effectively. However, the challenges are obtaining a relatively low Deltathetas50 and a low noise. To test the concept, we have made films of the type Ta/CoCr/Ru/CoCrPt:Si02 on to AlMg disks coated with a soft magnetic underlayer. Synthetic antiferromagnetic intermediate layers of the type CoCr/Ru/CoCr where the individual CoCr layers are antiferromagnetically coupled to minimize any noise from the magnetic intermediate layers were also fabricated and studied.