Control of the tilted orientation of CoCrPt/Ti thin film media by collimated sputtering

In this work, we propose a new method to fabricate tilted magnetic thin film media which may fully use the writing head field for magnetic recording. We deposit a Ti underlayer on glass substrate using normal dc magnetron sputtering. dc magnetron sputtering with a tilted collimator is proposed to deposit the CoCrPt magnetic layer on the Ti underlayer. The tilted collimator confined the target materials approaching the substrate at oblique angles. The tilted columnar structure of the CoCrPt layer was induced by this kind of collimated sputtering. The maximum value of coercivity tilts from the normal plane when the thickness of the magnetic layer increases from 20 to 40 nm. The rocking curve results show the tilted crystallographic orientation of the CoCrPt film. With the combined effect of the tilted columnar structure and tilted easy axis, a tilted magnetic thin film was fabricated which is a potential candidate for ultrahigh density magnetic recording. A model is proposed to explain the relationship between the orientation and the film growth via the collimator. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.