Pt/C intermediate layer for Co-Cr perpendicular magnetic recording media with extremely high resolution

A new type of intermediate layer was proposed to control a storage layer growth for obtaining high areal density in a doublelayered perpendicular magnetic recording medium. Introduction of the new intermediate layer (Pt/C film) between a soft magnetic back layer and a storage layer improves magnetic property of the storage layer. The intermediate layer can reduce the initial growing layer thickness of the storage layer by hetero-epitaxial growth. A reproduced signal at an extremely high linear density of 1235 kFRPI has been confirmed by a giant magnetoresistive head with track width of 250 nm and shield gap length of 92 nm. A very sharp transition width, a half step height T/sub 50/, of 32.7 nm was also obtained.