Review Article: FePt heat assisted magnetic recording media

Abstract

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) media status, requirements, and challenges to extend the areal density (AD) of magnetic hard disk drives beyond current records of around 1.4 Tb/in.2 are updated. The structural properties of granular high anisotropy chemically ordered L10 FePtX-Y HAMR media by now are similar to perpendicular CoCrPt-based magnetic recording media. Reasonable average grain diameter ⟨D⟩ = 8–10 nm and distributions σD/D ∼ 18% are possible despite elevated growth temperatures TG = 650–670 °C. A 2× reduction of ⟨D⟩ down to 4–5 nm and lowering σD/D < 10%–15% are ongoing efforts to increase AD to ∼4 Tb/in.2. X = Cu ∼ 10 at. % reduces the Curie temperature TC by ∼100 K below TC,bulk = 750 K, thereby lowering the write head heat energy requirement. Multiple FePtX-Y granular layers with Y = 30–35 vol. % grain-to-grain segregants like carbides, oxides, and/or nitrides are used to fully exchange decouple the grains and achieve cylindrical shape. FePt is typically grown on fcc MgO (100) seedlayers to form well oriented FePt (002). A FePt lattice parameter ratio c/a ∼0.96 and high chemical order S > 0.90 result in magnetic anisotropy KU ∼ 4.5 × 107 erg/cm3, and only 25% below the FePt single crystal value KU = 6.6 × 107 erg/cm3 has been achieved in 7–8 nm diameter grains. Switching field distributions depend on anisotropy field (HK) distributions, which are currently of the order of ΔHK/HK ∼ 10% (ΔHK ∼ 10–12 kOe, HK ∼ 10–11 T) at room temperature. High thermal conductivity heat sink layers, including Ag, Au, Cu, and Cr, are used to optimize the cooling rate and maximize the down- and cross-track thermal gradient, which determines the achievable track density.