Patent ID: 8877360

Claim:
A perpendicular magnetic recording medium comprising: a substrate; and a multilayered magnetic recording layer formed on the substrate by alternately stacking not less than two magnetic layers and not less than two nonmagnetic layers, wherein the magnetic layers are each magnetically continuous in an in-plane direction and magnetically coupled with each other, each of the magnetic layers from a bottom of the multilayered magnetic recording layer to a top of the multilayered magnetic recording layer in a thickness direction thereof, includes a magnetic material portion and a plurality of pinning portions, which are capable of pinning magnetic domain walls and dispersed within the magnetic material portion, the pinning portions being metallic and made of a nonmagnetic metal element different from an element that is a main component of the nonmagnetic layer, and a magnetic characteristic of the medium is such that a gradient α of a magnetization curve near a coercive force is not less than 5.