Microstructure and noise characteristics of Co–Cr–Ta films deposited in low Ar pressure

Co 85 Cr 13 Ta 2 /Cr/C films for longitudinal recording disks were deposited by plasma-enhanced facing targets sputtering apparatus on 2.5 in and ultra-flat substrates of glass ceramics, to obtain low-noise media for high-density recording systems. In this study, the dependence of the microstructure on the sputtering conditions, such as Ar pressure ( P Ar ) of 0.07 mTorr in the background pressure of 1×10 −7 was investigated. As a result, better microstructure with very loosely, magnetically coupled grains was observed by TEM, compared with that in P Ar of 0.2 mTorr. This suggests that a proposed media is suitable for ultra-high-density recording systems.