Reducing average grain and domain size in high-coercivity Co ∕ Pd perpendicular magnetic recording media through seedlayer engineering

InSn seedlayers for Co ∕ Pd multilayered media were engineered using dopants (Pd, O) to achieve grain size of 7.8 ± 1.8 nm ( σ = 23 % ) and virgin magnetic cluster size of less than 65 nm . H N = − 5 kOe and H c = 12.2 kOe make this media promising for extremely high-density recording. These parameters were all realized with room-temperature depositions without annealing. Media with O-doped 2 - nm InSn seedlayers without other adhesion layers achieved H c = 6.2 kOe , which will be beneficial in reducing spacing loss. There is evidence that the engineered seedlayers also reduce the anisotropy dispersion and therefore the switching field distributions of these media.