Amorphous alloy of light rare earth-transition metal and semi-metal, magneto-optical recording layer and magneto-optical disk adopting the layer

摘要

An amorphous alloy of light rare earth-transition metal and semi-metal, having a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy without decrease of magnetic moment of light rare earth metal in a short wavelength region, a magneto-optical recording layer made of the amorphous alloy, and a magneto-optical disk adopting the magneto-optical recording layer are provided. According to the magneto-optical recording layer, the semi-metal is added to the amorphous alloy of the light rare earth-transition metal to induce p-d electron orbit coupling between the transition metal and the added semi-metal of the amorphous alloy, thereby decreasing the demagnetizing energy of the amorphous alloy according to the decrease of a magnetic moment of the transition metal, without any effect on the magnetic moment of the light rare earth metal. Therefore, the magneto-optical disk can attain magnetic anisotropy in the growth direction in a short wavelength region and a large Kerr rotation angle can be maintained as a magneto-optical recording medium having the excellent magneto-optical characteristics.