Patent ID: 7967993

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a magnetic recording medium, comprising: forming a hard mask comprising carbon and a resist on a magnetic recording layer; imprinting a stamper on the resist in order to transfer patterns of protrusions and recesses; removing resist residues left in the recesses of the patterned resist; etching the hard mask using the patterned resist as a mask in order to transfer the patterns of protrusions and recesses; stripping the resist; reducing a thickness of the remaining hard mask to 5 nm or less by reactive ion etching with oxygen or a mixed gas comprising oxygen; and removing the remaining hard mask and modifying a surface of the magnetic recording layer uncovered with the remaining hard mask by ion beam etching with a gas selected from the group consisting of Helium(He), Neon(Ne), Argon(Ar), Krypton(Kr), Xenon(Xe), Nitrogen(N 2 ) and a mixture thereof, wherein a depth of the recesses of the magnetic recording layer is 15 nm or less after the remaining hard mask is removed.