Magnetic recording medium and method of manufacturing the same

摘要

A magnetic recording medium exhibits a high coercive force and suppresses noises caused therefrom at a low level. The magnetic recording medium includes a nonmagnetic substrate, a nonmagnetic undercoating layer on the substrate where the undercoating layer has a hexagonal close packing structure or a combination of the hexagonal close packing structure and a body center cubic structure. The magnetic recording medium includes a nonmagnetic intermediate layer on the undercoating layer, where the intermediate layer has a hexagonal close packing structure or a combination of the hexagonal close packing structure and a body center cubic structure, and a magnetic layer on the intermediate layer. The magnetic layer has a granular structure formed of ferromagnetic crystal grains and oxide grain boundaries or nitride grain boundaries surrounding the ferromagnetic crystal grains.