Continuous fabrication of thin film magnetic recording medium with vacuum deposition

A thin film magnetic recording medium is manufactured with vacuum deposition or sputtering technique. One or more reflectors are provided between the substrate and an evaporation source around a path through which evaporated atoms travel onto a substrate. When a thin film is deposited on a substrate, the one or more reflectors are heated above a melting point of an evaporation material to reflect evaporated atoms arriving them. Thus, atoms reflected by the one or more reflectors also contribute to deposition of a thin film as well as evaporated atoms arriving directly from the evaporation source, and deposition efficiency is improved. Such a reflector is also used to limit a boundary or the path through which evaporated atoms travel onto a substrate. Then, a range of incident angles of evaporated atoms onto the substrate is kept the same for a long time on deposition, and characteristics of the thin film are stable.