Effects of Morphology on the Magnetic Properties and Transition Noise of Longitudinal CoCrTa/Cr Thin Film Media

The effects of grain morphology on the magnetic properties and transition noise, and their correlation with magnetic interactions of longitudinal CoCrTa/Cr thin film media have been studied. An increase of the Cr deposition temperature increases the Cr grain size resulting in a slight increase in the in-plane coercivity, but neither a reduction in magnetic coupling nor an improvement in signal to noise ratio was observed. However, an increase of the CoCrTa deposition temperature was found to increase the in-plane coercivity and reduce the transition noise significantly.