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US 9,449,633 B1Granted
Smooth structures for heat-assisted magnetic recording media
AssigneeWD Media, LLC
InventorsShahid Pirzada, Tomoko Seki, B. Ramamurthy Acharya, Antony Ajan
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Abstract
A recording medium having improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) capabilities and head-disk interface characteristics includes an etched smoothened underlayer, over which the recording layer is grown. One mechanism for increasing the SNR is by growing more columnar magnetic grain structures within the recording layer, which is facilitated by a smoother underlayer template.
Claims22
A heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) medium comprising:
- a substrate;
- a heat sink layer over said substrate, wherein said heat sink layer has a thickness such that a high thermal gradient is achieved in said HAMR medium;
- an etched underlayer over said heat sink layer, wherein said etched underlayer comprises an etched, smoothed surface;
- and
- a magnetic recording layer over said underlayer.
2 more elements
A data storage device comprising:
- a heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) disk medium rotatably mounted on a spindle, said HAMR disk medium comprising:
- a substrate,
- a heat sink layer over said substrate, wherein said heat sink layer has a thickness such that a high thermal gradient is achieved in said HAMR disk medium,
- an etched underlayer over said heat sink layer, wherein said etched underlayer comprises an etched, smoothed surface, and
- a magnetic recording layer over said etched underlayer;
- a heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) head slider comprising a magnetic write head configured to write to said HAMR disk medium;
- a heat source coupled with said slider;
- and
- a voice coil motor actuator configured to move said HAMR head slider to access portions of said HAMR disk medium.
6 more elements
A method of manufacturing a heat-assisted magnetic recording medium, the method comprising:
- forming a heat sink layer over a substrate;
- forming an underlayer over said heat sink layer;
- smoothing said underlayer by etching said underlayer to form a smoothed underlayer;
- and
- forming a magnetic recording layer over said smoothed underlayer, wherein said magnetic recording layer is more columnar than would otherwise grow on an un-smoothed underlayer, and wherein forming said magnetic recording layer over said smoothed underlayer reduces a vertical-axis dispersion of said magnetic recording layer by at least about 0.7 degrees compared to a magnetic recording layer that would otherwise grow on said un-smoothed underlayer.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.