Effects and microstructures of indium tin oxide seed layers for perpendicular magnetic recording media

Co/Pd multilayers have been shown to exhibit fcc structures and they have good recording properties with ITO as a seed layer. The microstructures of extremely thin indium-tin-oxide (ITO) grown in pure Ar, and the effects of this ITO as seed layers for Co/Pd and Co75B25/Pd multilayers, have been studied. The magnetic properties of the multilayers have been correlated with the crystallinity of the ITO. TEM analysis showed that this ITO has a crystalline structure instead of the amorphous structure reported by other researchers. Both heated and unheated films had what appeared to be metallic fcc structures with lattice constants of 4.88 A. Heating ITO seed layers led to increased coercivity (from 5.5 kOe to 7 kOe) in Co/Pd multilayers that were grown at room temperature. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.