MICROSTRUCTURE AND EPITAXY OF C-AXIS ORIENTED SINGLE-CRYSTAL COBALT FILMS GROWN ON RIGID UNDERLAYERS

We have established the conditions to grow c-axis oriented Co films on mica substrates and characterized their crystallography and microstru cture in detail. In particular, these films are single crystal, c-axis oriented, Co(hcp) and are grown epitaxially by e-beam evaporation on either Ti or Ru underlayers. The orientation relationship is basically (00.1)mica parallel-to (00.1)underlayer parallel-to (00.1)Co, and [11 .0]mica parallel-to [10.0]underlayer parallel-to [10.0]Co. Films grown on Ru underlayers have an average grain size of 50-80 nm with negligi ble fcc content. For Ti underlayers, the 15-20 nm size grains contain a small fraction of fcc cobalt. The growth of such films makes it poss ible to measure fundamental magnetic properties of the individual micr ostructural components/grains of a thin film recording media.