| 摘要 |
A perpendicular magnetic recording medium is disclosed in which a soft magnetic layer used as a low K<SUB>u </SUB>layer can be stably produced with high performance. Thermal stabilization of magnetization, ease of writing by a magnetic head, and SNR also are improved. A method of manufacturing the medium is disclosed. The perpendicular magnetic recording medium includes at least a nonmagnetic underlayer, a magnetic recording layer, and a protective layer formed in this order on a nonmagnetic substrate. The magnetic recording layer includes a low K<SUB>u </SUB>layer having a relatively small perpendicular magnetic anisotropy constant (K<SUB>u </SUB>value), and a high K<SUB>u </SUB>layer in which the K<SUB>u </SUB>value is relatively large, and the low K<SUB>u </SUB>layer includes a soft magnetic thin film including an iron group element-based microcrystal structure, in which a nitrogen element is added to a ferromagnetic material mainly containing one of metals of Co, Ni and Fe or an alloy of the metal. The thin film has a crystal structure of a face-centered cubic lattice or hexagonal close packed, and a preferred crystal orientation plane parallel to a plane of the film is a (111) plane in the face-centered cubic lattice structure, and a (002) plane in the hexagonal close packed structure.
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