L 10 CoPt- Ta2 O5 exchange coupled multilayer media for magnetic recording

Abstract

Exchange coupled L 10 CoPt- Ta2 O5 multilayer media of gradually reducing coercivity from bottom to top layer were demonstrated to reduce the coercivity of hardest layer. The coercivity of different layers was tuned by adjusting the Ta2 O5 content. The coercivity of 12 nm hardest layer was reduced by factor of three using multilayer media of total thickness 20 nm. The exchange coupled media comprising 12 nm hardest layer and 8 nm softest layer was able to reduce the coercivity only by factor of two. This indicates that multilayer media is more effective to reduce the switching field than the exchange coupled media. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.