Nano Express
Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in FePt Patterned Media Employing a CrV Seed Layer
- † Equal contributors
1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea
2 Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-761, Korea
3 Nano Process Division, Korea Advanced Nano Fab. Center, Gyeonggi 443-270, Korea
Nanoscale Res Lett 2011, 6:13 doi:10.1007/s11671-010-9755-2
Published: 26 August 2010Abstract
A thin FePt film was deposited onto a CrV seed layer at 400°C and showed a high coercivity (~3,400 Oe) and high magnetization (900–1,000 emu/cm3) characteristic of L10 phase. However, the magnetic properties of patterned media fabricated from the film stack were degraded due to the Ar-ion bombardment. We employed a deposition-last process, in which FePt film deposited at room temperature underwent lift-off and post-annealing processes, to avoid the exposure of FePt to Ar plasma. A patterned medium with 100-nm nano-columns showed an out-of-plane coercivity fivefold larger than its in-plane counterpart and a remanent magnetization comparable to saturation magnetization in the out-of-plane direction, indicating a high perpendicular anisotropy. These results demonstrate the high perpendicular anisotropy in FePt patterned media using a Cr-based compound seed layer for the first time and suggest that ultra-high-density magnetic recording media can be achieved using this optimized top-down approach.
