Effects of Incident Angle on Recording Properties of Vacuum Deposited Co-Cr Films

The recording characteristics of Co-Cr films were investigated with respect to the angle at which evaporated atoms are incident on the substrate during film deposition. The recording characteristics of Co-Cr films deposited at angles of incidence of 55° to 20° depend on the head scan direction. In the normal direction, the magnetization in the film is recorded mainly by the magnetic field near the leading edge of the head, while in the reverse direction it is written mainly by the field near the trailing edge. The single-peak-like isolated waveform in the normal head scanning direction is explained as the super-positioning of the waveform reproduced from the magnetization recorded by the head field near the leading edge, and the waveform from magnetization reversals at the film surface which are written by the field near the trailing edge. The reproduced voltage from the film medium decreases with increasing azimuth angle, owing to the magnetic anisotropy existing in the film plane, while Co-Cr films deposited at incident angles of 20° to -20° have almost the same density response at different azimuth angles.