Patent ID: 8021769

Claim:
A patterned perpendicular magnetic recording disk having discrete individually magnetizable data islands comprising: a substrate having a generally planar surface and a plurality of spaced-apart pillars extending generally perpendicularly from said surface; a recording layer structure on the top of each pillar, the recording layer structure comprising a first multilayer having an out-of-plane easy axis of magnetization and selected from the group consisting of Co/Pt, Co/Pd, Fe/Pt, Fe/Pd and Co/Ni multilayers and a second multilayer having an out-of-plane easy axis of magnetization and selected from said group but different from the selected first multilayer, the second multilayer being ferromagnetically exchange-coupled to the first multilayer; and nonmagnetic regions on the substrate between the pillars, said nonmagnetic regions having no recording layer structure, whereby the spaced-apart pillars with recording layer structure are discrete individually magnetizable data islands; wherein said first and second multilayers have different anisotropy fields; wherein said first multilayer exhibits a first switching field distribution (SFD) on spaced-apart pillars and said second multilayer exhibits a second SFD on spaced-apart pillars; and wherein said recording layer structure of said exchange-coupled first and second multilayers exhibits a SFD less than the greater of said first and second SFDs.