Multimetal-Substituted Epsilon-Iron Oxide ϵ-Ga0.31 Ti0.05 Co0.05 Fe1.59 O3 for Next-Generation Magnetic Recording Tape in the Big-Data Era.

From the viewpoints of large capacity, long-term guarantee, and low cost, interest in magnetic recording tapes has undergone a revival as an archive storage media for big data. Herein, we prepared a new series of metal-substituted ϵ-Fe2 O3 , ϵ-Ga(III) 0.31 Ti(IV) 0.05 Co(II) 0.05 Fe(III) 1.59 O3 , nanoparticles with an average size of 18 nm. Ga, Ti, and Co cations tune the magnetic properties of ϵ-Fe2 O3 to the specifications demanded for a magnetic recording tape. The coercive field was tuned to 2.7 kOe by introduction of single-ion anisotropy on Co(II) (S=3/2) along the c-axis. The saturation magnetization was increased by 44 % with Ga(III) (S=0) and Ti(IV) (S=0) substitution through the enhancement of positive sublattice magnetizations. The magnetic tape media was fabricated using an actual production line and showed a very sharp signal response and a remarkably high signal-to-noise ratio compared to the currently used magnetic tape.