A growth model for polycrystalline thin film media: comparison of bicrystal and unicrystal grain structures

Author

Jin, Zhen ; Doerner, Mary ; Bertram, Neal

Author_Institution

Center for Magnetic Recording Res., California Univ., San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Volume

36

Issue

5

fYear

2000

fDate

9/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2294

Lastpage

2296

Abstract

A medium model with random grain structure and in-plane grain area distribution has been developed. In this paper, this model is extended to study the grain size distribution of bicrystal thin film media. In most cases, the simulation shows that the grain area distribution to be close to a log-normal distribution. Various combinations of minimum nucleation distances of unicrystal underlayer and bicrystal magnetic layer are investigated. The relative grain area of both layers is investigated by changing the number of nucleation sites. Assuming recombination of adjacent grains with parallel anisotropy axes, the resulting bicrystal grain area distribution width is insensitive to the value of the minimum nucleation distance and only slightly decreases with increasing average area of the bicrystal grains

Keywords

crystal microstructure; grain growth; grain size; magnetic recording; magnetic thin films; nucleation; bicrystal grain structures; grain size distribution; growth model; in-plane grain area distribution; log-normal distribution; minimum nucleation distances; polycrystalline thin film media; random grain structure; unicrystal grain structures; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Grain size; Log-normal distribution; Magnetic anisotropy; Magnetic noise; Magnetic recording; Magnetic separation; Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; Random media; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.908403

Filename

908403