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The dedicated servo media (DSM) is the conventional perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) media with an inserted servo recording layer between the data recording layer and the soft underlayer. By using the conventional PMR media as the reference, the design consideration on the layer structure, the preparation, the magnetic properties, the microstructure, including the $c$ -axis orientation and the growth of the layers, the surface roughness, and the recording performance for the DSM are reported.

The recent advancements in the development of new functionalized nanostructured materials (i.e., multilayers and nano-composites) have pushed the film thickness into sub-nanometer range. The design and optimization of the final properties of these materials to meet the demands of their final application completely depends on an appropriate combination of film thickness, composition and microstructure. Measuring such film properties on this kind of ultra-thin film poses a significant challenge to the capabilities of current analytical characterization tools. In particular, significant challenges exist in the depth resolution of depth profiling techniques, such as XPS and AES. Sampling depth and sputter ion energy as well as Zalar rotation were widely believed to be the significant factors to affect the depth resolution. In this work, we studied the effects of these factors to the depth resolution on one type of typical ultra-thin film material that was the topic of many recent research and development works, namely ultra-thin diamond-like-carbon film. Furthermore, this work focused on finding out the sensitivities of these variables to the depth resolution. In doing so, we hope to find out the limit of improvements on the depth resolution on these very important depth profiling techniques.