Characterization of L1 0 -FePt/Fe based exchange coupled composite bit pattern media

L1 0 -FePt exchange coupled composite (ECC) bit patterned media has been considered as a potential candidate to achieve high thermal stability and writability for future high density magnetic recording. In this paper, FePt based ECC bit patterned structures with 31 nm bit size and 37 nm pitch size were fabricated using di-block copolymer lithography on 3 inch wafer. Remanant states were tracked using magnetic force microscopy (MFM). DC demagnetization (DCD) curves were plotted by counting the reversed bits in the MFM images. Magnetic domains in which the magnetizations of the neighboring bits were aligned to the same direction were observed in the MFM patterns. Thermal decay measurement was performed for the samples to obtain the thermal stability and gain factor. The thermal barrier was found around 210 k B T with a gain factor up to 1.57 for the bit patterned structure FePt(4 nm)/Fe(4 nm).