Stacking faults in Co-alloy longitudinal media

Stacking faults in CoCrTa/Cr, CoCrPt/NiAl, and CoCrPt/Cr/NiAl films have be en studied by electron diffraction, Interfacial lattice match and epitaxial growth play important roles in reducing the stacking fault density. It is found that the bicrystal media has large stacking fault densities. In the u nicrystal media case, when good epitaxy between magnetic layer and underlay er cannot be achieved, there are many randomly oriented grains in the magne tic layer. These random grains have a high stacking fault density.