Patent ID: 8529989

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a magnetic recording layer constituted of two or more layers, wherein a soft magnetic under layer is formed directly on a nonmagnetic substrate, and an orientation control layer is formed on the soft magnetic under layer, the method comprising a step of forming a first layer of the magnetic recording layer having a granular structure constituted of ferromagnetic crystal grains and crystal grain boundaries made of a nonmagnetic oxide or nitride on the orientation control layer, a step of forming a surface unevenness control layer on the first layer of the magnetic recording layer for decreasing surface unevenness of the first layer of the magnetic recording layer located between the first layer of the magnetic recording layer and a second layer of the magnetic recording layer, a step of forming the second layer of the magnetic recording layer constituted only of ferromagnetic crystal grains on the surface unevenness control layer, and a step of heating the nonmagnetic substrate after formation of the surface unevenness control layer so as to decrease a surface roughness Ra of the second layer of the magnetic recording layer to less than 2 nm, wherein at least one layer of the surface unevenness control layer is made of an alloy material which contains at least one element selected from the group of elements having a face-centered cubic structure as a main component, and elements selected from the group of elements having a body-centered cubic structure, and also has both a (111) plane-aligned crystalline structure and an irregular layer lattice formed by mixing a face-centered cubic structure with a body-centered cubic structure.