NiW/Ru underlayer for CoPt-SiO 2 granular perpendicular recording media

Abstract

This paper presented the usage of the NiW/Ru underlayer to replace the single Ru underlayer for promoting CoPt hcp (0002) texture. Fcc (111) textured NiW film was used to induce the Ru hcp (0002) texture. It was found that the utilization of the (111) textured NiW alloying layer promoted the formation of Ru(0002) texture, enhanced the magnetic grain isolation and generated the uniform grains with gain size less than 10 nm in CoPt-SiO 2 recording layer. The out-of-plane coercivity was also enhanced with the growth of 10 nm NiW underlayer below the Ru layer. © 2011 American Scientific Publishers.