Patent ID: 8512884

Claim:
A perpendicular magnetic recording medium, comprising at least a soft under layer, an orientation control layer, a magnetic recording layer and a protective layer provided on a non-magnetic substrate, wherein said orientation control layer comprises three or more layers including a seed layer, a first intermediate layer and a second intermediate layer, formed in that order from a side of said substrate, a plurality of crystal grains that constitute said first intermediate layer are epitaxially grown on each single crystal grain of said seed layer, each single crystal grain that constitutes said second intermediate layer is epitaxially grown on a single crystal grain of said first intermediate layer, each single crystal grain that constitutes said magnetic recording layer is epitaxially grown on a single crystal grain of said second intermediate layer, and crystal grains that constitute said second intermediate layer are finer than crystal grains that constitute said first intermediate layer, wherein said first intermediate layer comprises, as a main constituent, at least one element selected from the group consisting of elements having a face-centered cubic structure, is formed from an alloy material of said element of said main constituent and an element selected from the group consisting of elements having a body-centered cubic structure, and has a structure that combines a crystal structure oriented in a (111) crystal plane, and stacking faults composed of a mixture of a face-centered cubic structure and a body-centered cubic structure.