Patent ID: 8900655

Claim:
A method, comprising: forming a masking layer on a non-magnetic interlayer overlying a magnetically soft underlayer (SUL), wherein the SUL is supported on a surface of a non-magnetic substrate, and a seed layer is formed between said SUL and said interlayer; forming a resist layer on said masking layer; forming a pattern of recesses extending through said resist layer and exposing spaced apart surface portions of said masking layer; extending said pattern of recesses through said masking layer, thereby exposing spaced apart surface portions of said interlayer; and at least partially filling said pattern of recesses using an epitaxial deposition of a magnetically hard material to form a perpendicular magnetic recording layer with a hexagonal close packed (hcp) crystal structure with uniaxial crystalline anisotropy and c-axis magnetic easy axis perpendicular to an upper surface thereof over at least part of the exposed spaced apart surface portions of the interlayer, wherein extending said pattern of recesses comprises etching said masking layer and removing said resist layer subsequent to etching said masking layer.