Magnetic recording medium and method of manufacturing the same

Abstract

A magnetic recording medium has a nonmagnetic substrate, a nonmagnetic underlayer containing at least one metal selected from Ru, Os, and Re laminated on the substrate, and a magnetic layer including ferromagnetic crystal grains and nonmagnetic grain boundaries surrounding the ferromagnetic crystal grains laminated on the underlayer. The underlayer is deposited in a gas atmosphere containing argon and at least one of krypton and xenon in an amount sufficient to reduce the argon remaining in the underlayer to less than 1,000 ppm. Such a gas atmosphere contains at least 10% of krypton or xenon, and pressurized to a range of 30-70 mTorr. The underlayer is formed having film structure composed of fine particles, which is suitable for controlling the structure of the magnetic layer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.