Effects of Cr underlayer thickness and texture on magnetic characteristics of CoCrTa media

Abstract

For a longitudinal recording disk with a CoCrTa magnetic layer on a Cr underlayer, a thin Cr layer obscures the disk texture less than a thick Cr layer. This results in greater uniaxial in-plane anisotropy, Sr, S*, and lower Hc for the thin Cr disk, which has strong intergranular coupling along the disk texture lines. Thick Cr disks have higher in-plane coercivity but a stronger perpendicular anisotropy than thin Cr disks.