Epitaxial growth of quad-crystal Co-alloy magnetic recording media

Quad-crystal CO-alloy/Cr/Ag thin film media were epitaxially grown on hydrofluric acid etched Si(111) single crystal substrates by sputter deposition. The orientation relationship was studied by x-ray θ/2θ diffraction and pole figure Φ-scan, and it was determined to be Co(1011) || Cr(ll0) || Ag(111) || Si(111). The Ag layer contains two twin-related orientations of grains. Cr grows with three variants of grains on the Ag(111) layer. Since Co(1011) contains grains with four possible easy axis directions when grown on each Cr variant, the quad-crystal media consist of grains with twelve easy axis directions and exhibit nearly isotropic in-plane magnetic properties.