1. Thermal annealing effect on FeCoB soft underlayer for perpendicular magnetic recording.
- Author
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Yu, Jun, Chang, Chunghee, Karns, Duane, Ju, Ganping, Kubota, Yukiko, Eppler, Walter, Brucker, Charles, and Weller, Dieter
- Subjects
- *
ANISOTROPY , *MAGNETISM , *THICK films - Abstract
We study the noise performance of amorphous FeCoB soft underlayers (SULs) with radial magnetic anisotropy. 200 nm thick FeCoB films are sputter deposited and optionally postannealed for 8 s at different annealing powers. The correlation of SUL read-back noise with the magnetic and structural properties is studied using spin stand testing, in-plane magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements, magnetic force microscopy, and x-ray diffraction. The effects of annealing to achieve low read-back noise are examined. It is found that as-prepared films show large dc noise associated with stripe domains due to stress-induced perpendicular anisotropy. Thermal annealing reduces the internal stress and the films become magnetically anisotropic in the radial direction. The SUL-induced dc noise drops to the electronic noise floor, dc noise is found to decrease with an increase in annealing power until the films start to crystallize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2002
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