Effect of Crystal Orientation on Vertical Coercivity in Co-Cr Film

A higher perpendicular coercivity is needed if Co-Cr film is to deliver a higher reproduced output. In this paper, we report on a means of obtaining Co-Cr film on PET substrates with a high perpendicular coercivity. A low degree of crystal orientation in the Co-Cr film results in a high perpendicular coercivity. In double layer media, the crystal orientation of the Co-Cr layer changes with that of the permalloy underlayer. A high reproduced output was obtained at densities up to 100 kBPI using Co-Cr/permalloy double-layer media with high perpendicular coercivity in the Co-Cr layer and a single pole head. The inclination of the easy axis in a simple magnetic wall motion model or a magnetization rotation model cannot explain the increase in perpendicular coercivity. Possibly the degradation of the orientation of the Co-Cr film acts to increase the Cr segregation, resulting in a larger perpendicular coercivity.