Abstract
Twenty-nanometer FePt films with 40% Fe content were deposited on MgO substrates at 300°C. A perfect (001) preferred orientation of FePt L1 0 phase was obtained. After 700°C annealing in vacuum, a room temperature perpendicular anisotropy of as high as 4.5 × 10 7 erg/cm 3 can be obtained. The Curie temperature of the sample with 40% Fe content is far below the 50% Fe sample, which can effectively reduce the temperature of the thermal writing process. Furthermore, decay of magnetic anisotropy energy (K u ) is much faster than saturated magnetization (M s ) with rising temperature, which results in a domination of demagnetization (DM) energy at high temperature. Therefore, a further reduction of the switching field can be achieved. Finally, the films show almost the same magnetic properties during 10 times thermal writing processes from 25°C to 300°C, implying this media has high reliability for thermal writing process. © 2007 IEEE.