A heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) medium includes a perpendicular magnetic recording layer (typically a chemically-ordered FePt alloy), a seed/thermal barrier layer (typically MgO) below the recording layer, and a heat-sink layer with anisotropic thermal conductivity below the seed/thermal barrier layer. The in-plane thermal conductivity of the heat-sink layer is greater than its out-of-plane thermal conductivity. The heat-sink layer may be selected from hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), hexagonal graphite, and the 6H polytype of hexagonal silicon carbide (6H-SiC). If the heat-sink layer is h-BN, the h-BN layer is formed on a seed layer and has its c-axis oriented out-of-plane (substantially orthogonal to the surface of the medium substrate).

The invention provides a magnetic recording medium including a magnetic layer or a magnetic recording layer having a granular structure in which magnetic crystal grains are well separated from each other. The magnetic recording medium includes a substrate, a seed layer, and a magnetic recording layer, wherein the magnetic recording layer includes a first magnetic layer which is a continuous film consisting of an ordered alloy, and a second magnetic layer having a granular structure consisting of magnetic crystal grains consisting of an ordered alloy and a non-magnetic crystal grain boundary, and the seed layer consists of a material selected from the group consisting of an NaCl-type compound, a spinel-type compound, and a perovskite-type compound.

A method of manufacturing a magnetic recording medium, includes at least: forming an orientation control layer 3 that controls orientation of an immediately above layer thereof on a non-magnetic substrate 1; and forming a perpendicular magnetic layer 4 in which an easy axis of magnetization is mainly perpendicularly orientated to the non-magnetic substrate 1, in which the forming of the orientation control layer 3 includes forming a granular layer having a granular structure that includes Ru or a material in which Ru is a main component and an oxide having a melting point which is greater than or equal to 450 C. and less than or equal to 1000 C., by a sputtering method, and the forming of the perpendicular magnetic layer 4 includes growing crystal grains to form columnar crystals that are continuous in a thickness direction together with crystal grains that form the orientation control layer 3.

A base for a magnetic recording medium, includes a substrate made of an Al alloy and having a surface, and a film made of a NiP-based alloy and plated on the surface of the substrate. The film has a thickness of 7 m or greater, and a ratio E/ is 29 or greater, where E [GPa] denotes the Young's modulus of the substrate, and [g/cm.sup.3] denotes a density of the substrate.

A magnetic stack includes a interlayer structure and a magnetic recording layer disposed over the interlayer in the magnetic stack. The magnetic recording layer includes substantially ordered L.sub.10, <001> oriented crystalline magnetic grains laterally separated by a nonmagnetic, segregant material. The interlayer structure comprises a first layer having cubic crystal structure including <100> oriented crystalline grains and a second layer having crystalline grains laterally separated by a segregant material. The crystalline grains of the second layer are arranged in substantially vertically contiguous alignment with the crystalline grains of the first layer and the segregant material of the magnetic recording layer is arranged in substantially vertically contiguous alignment with the segregant material of the second layer.

An apparatus includes a substrate, a plurality of layers overlying the substrate, a hexagonal close packed (hcp) translating layer, and an hcp layer overlying the hcp translating layer. A top layer of the multiple layers has a face centered cube (fcc) lattice structure. The hcp translating layer overlies the top layer. The hcp translating layer interfaces between the top layer and the hcp layer, and columnar structure of the top layer aligns with the hcp layer through the hcp translating layer.

A magnetic recording medium includes a substrate and a stacked film on the substrate and including a magnetic recording layer. An elastic modulus E.sub.sub of the substrate satisfies Equation (1) below, where h is a film thickness of the stacked film and E.sub.film is an Young's modulus of the stacked film:

E.sub.sub?(200*E.sub.film)/(6*h)(1).

A magnetic recording medium includes a support, a recording layer, and a protective layer provided on at least one surface of the support and containing plate-shaped particle powder. The plate-shaped particle powder is stacked in an overlapping manner in a thickness direction of the protective layer such that main surfaces of plate-shaped particles face a surface of the support, and the plate-shaped particles have an average plate ratio of 60 or more.

A perpendicular magnetic recording medium includes a non-magnetic substrate; an underlayer including first and second underlayers; and a magnetic recording layer including a layer having a granular structure including grains of a magnetic crystal and grain boundary portions, wherein the first underlayer has a NaCl structure with a (001) orientation and contains a nitride or an oxide of at least one element. The first underlayer may contain a nitride of at least one of Cr, V, Ti, Sc, Mo, Nb, Zr, Y, Al, and B, and the second underlayer may include a plurality of island-shaped regions and contain at least one of Mg, Ca, Co, and Ni. The first underlayer may contains an oxide of at least one of Mg, Ca, Co, and Ni, and the second underlayer may include net-shaped regions and contain at least one of Cr, V, Ti, Sc, Mo, Nb, Zr, Y, Al, B, and C.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a magnetic recording medium having a stacked structure of a seed layer including (Mg.sub.1-xTi.sub.x)O and a magnetic recording layer including an L1.sub.0 ordered alloy, and having improved properties. The method for producing a magnetic recording layer according to the present invention includes the steps of: (1) preparing a substrate; (2) forming a seed layer including (Mg.sub.1-xTi.sub.x)O onto the substrate; (3) plasma etching the seed layer in an atmosphere including inert gas; and (4) forming a magnetic recording layer including an ordered alloy onto the seed layer which has been subjected to the step (3).