Patent ID: 6893735

Claim:
A magnetic recording medium comprising: a nonmagnetic underlayer; an initial magnetic layer; a nonmagnetic spacer layer provided on the initial magnetic layer; a middle magnetic layer provided on the nonmagnetic spacer layer; and a final magnetic layer provided on the middle magnetic layer, said initial magnetic layer being disposed closer to said nonmagnetic underlayer than said middle and final magnetic layers, said initial and middle magnetic layers being anti-ferromagnetically coupled, said middle and final magnetic layers being ferromagnetically coupled, at least two of said initial, middle and final magnetic layers being made of mutually different compositions, said initial, middle and final magnetic layers satisfying the relationships Hci≠Hcm, and Hci≠Hcf, where Hci denotes a coercivity of the initial magnetic layer, Hcm denotes a coercivity of the middle magnetic layer and Hcf denotes a coercivity of the final magnetic layer wherein said final magnetic layer is directly deposited on said middle magnetic layer.