Annealing process for electroless coated disks for high temperature applications

A method of manufacturing a disk for a magnetic storage device, the method comprising:

• electroless plating a coating layer over a substrate to produce the disk, the coating layer forming an exterior surface of coating over the substrate, wherein the coating layer comprises an alloy of Ni, X1, and X2, wherein X1 comprises an element selected from the group consisting of Ag, Au, B, Cr, Cu, Ga, In, Mn, Mo, Nb, Pb, Sb, Se, Sn, Te, W, Zn, and Zr, and wherein X2 comprises B or P;
• annealing the coating layer using a heating source, wherein heat radiating from the heating source is directionally focused onto the exterior surface heating the coating layer to a first temperature thereby forming an annealed coating layer such that a roughness of the disk is not changed during a subsequent deposition of a magnetic recording layer over the annealed coating layer;
• and
• polishing the exterior surface;
• wherein the first temperature that the coating layer is heated to is higher than a second temperature that causes the surface roughness of the disk to change if both the substrate and coating layer are heated to the second temperature.