Seagate Technology Incorporated

Finisar Corporation

Maxtor Corporation

Bing Zhang

Yonglin Huang

Liren Du

Qi Deng

Xiwen Wang

Shuqing Ma

Jan-Ulrich Thiele

Xiaoding Ma

Florin Zavaliche

Huan H Tang

Paul Max Jones

Zhaohui Fan

Kevin John Grannen

Kenneth E Johnson

Fujian Huang

Roger K Malmhall

Bunsen Y Wong

XiaoPing Yan

Emil John C Esmenda

Chuan Gao

Be Van Ho

Provided herein is an apparatus including a head over-coat and a depleted region in the head over-coat. A media over-coat is deposited in the depleted region. A near field transducer is adjacent to the head over-coat, wherein the near field transducer combusts the deposited media over-coat.

Selective heat-assisted removal of head over-coat and media over-coat

A polarization beam combiner/splitter ('PBCS') for combining and splitting multiple channels of light beams simultaneously is disclosed. The PBCS includes a first fiber array, a second fiber array, and an optical core composed of a birefringent or other suitable material. The first fiber array includes a plurality of optical fiber pairs, while the second fiber array includes a corresponding plurality of optical fibers. The optical core is sized to modify light beams from any of the optical fibers of the first or second array. In a beam combining operation, multiple channels of polarized beams are emitted by the optical fiber pairs of the first fiber array and passed through the optical core, which combines the beams into dual-polarized combined light beams. The combined beams exit the optical core and are received by the second array of optical fibers. A similar beam splitting operation can be performed on multiple combined beams.

Multi-channel polarization beam combiner/splitter

A device functions as a polarization beam combiner and an isolator. When light is transmitted in a first propagation direction, a second beam is displaced towards a first beam. The second beam has a polarization orthogonal to the polarization of the first beam, and the second beam is substantially parallel to the first beam. The polarizations of the first and second beams are rotated by a same first amount in a first rotation direction and then rotated by the same first amount in a second opposite rotation direction. The first and second beams are combined by displacing the second beam towards the first beam. The combined beam is polarized along a first plane and second plane, which is orthogonal to the first plane. When light is transmitted in a second opposite propagation direction, the device is used to provide optical isolation.

Integrated optical isolator and polarization beam combiner

The coercivity of a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic disk is determined by providing at least two magnetic layers in the recording medium with the relative thicknesses of the two magnetic layers determining coercivity without the need for changing substrate temperature, underlayer thickness or substrate biasing during manufacture. Each magnetic layer is a cobalt alloy of different composition and intrinsic magnetic properties. Importantly, the coercivity can be modified without adversely affecting remanence or squareness of the hysteresis transition region for the recording medium.

Magnetic recording media having adjustable coercivity using multiple magnetic layers and method of making same

A seed layer is deposited under an underlayer in magnetic thin film media. The seed layer material has a similar lattice parameter and a similar crystal structure to the underlayer material. The preferred structure involves a nickel-aluminum seed layer, under a chromium underlayer, under a cobalt-based magnetic layer. Use of the nickel-aluminum seed layer produces higher coercivity and lower media noise in the resultant magnetic thin film. The coercivity and media noise values for the resultant magnetic thin film are dependent upon deposition parameters, and recommended deposition parameters are given.

Seeded underlayer in magnetic thin films

The signal-to-noise ratio of a magnetic recording medium having a thin magnetic layer is improved by adjusting the deposition conditions of the underlayer so that the magnetic layer is pseudo-epitaxially grown with a substantially uniform sub-micron-scale morphology. Uniform sub-micron-scale morphology can be attained by strategic selection of the underlayer and magnetic layer materials, and by controlling the underlayer deposition conditions so that the magnetic layer is epitaxially grown by a growth mechanism which is predominantly layer by layer. In an embodiment of the present invention, an underlayer comprising an alloy of chromium with vanadium, titanium or manganese, or an underlayer comprising a nickel-aluminum alloy, is sputter deposited at a pressure less than about 10 mTorr, substrate temperature greater than about 300.degree. C. and substrate bias greater than about 300 V, and a cobalt magnetic layer is epitaxially grown thereon, predominantly layer by layer.

Magnetic recording medium with substantially uniform sub-micron-scale

Double layer, or bi-layer, magnetic films are deposited over a substrate with an underlayer. The bi-layer film is a film of two different magnetic layers which have different chemical composition, deposited with no spacer layer between the two layers. The lower magnetic layer should be of a low noise magnetic material, while the upper magnetic layer should be a high coercivity magnetic material. The bi-layer film exhibits a single response to magnetic recording and a joint coercivity different from the coercivity of either layer by itself. A preferred double layer media uses a CoCrTa layer deposited under a CoCrTaPt layer, with the CoCrTa layer comprising 30 to 70% of the total film thickness. The double layer film produces magnetic media with higher coercivity and lower media noise as compared to single layered films of either of the materials of the magnetic layers.

CoCrTa/Cocrptta bi-layer magnetic thin films

Method of manufacturing CoCrTa/CoCrTaPt bi-layer magnetic thin films

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Bing Zhang