Magnetic and recording characteristics of bicrystalline longitudinal recording medium formed on an MgO single crystal disk substrate

An epitaxial thin film growth has been applied to prepare bicrystalline CoCrPt longitudinal recording medium using an MgO(100) single crystal disk substrate. X-ray and TEM measurements have revealed that the magnetic layer has a bicrystalline structure which consists of two variant domains with their c-axes lying in-plane and perpendicular-to each other. The maximum medium coercivity is observed at (2n+1)/spl pi//4, while the minimum coercivity is observed at n/spl pi//2 from the MgO[010] when measured along the circumferential direction. The highest signal to noise ratio, the highest linear resolution, and the best off-track performance are observed at (2n+1)/spl pi//4 where the direction of the recording magnetic head field lies between the easy magnetization axes of the two variant domains.>