A stable amorphous rare earth oxide, such as Y.sub.2 O.sub.3, including a stabilizer, such as carbon, silicon carbide, or hafnium oxide. The stable amorphous rare earth oxide can be used in a dielectric layer in a magneto-optical recording medium.
A high dielectric rare earth oxide of the form Mn.sub.2 O.sub.3 (such as, for example, Gd.sub.2 O.sub.3 or Y.sub.2 O.sub.3) is grown on a clean silicon (100) substrate surface under an oxygen partial pressure less than or equal to 10.sup.-7 torr to form an acceptable gate oxide (in terms of dielectric constant (.di-elect cons..about.18) and thickness) that eliminates the tunneling current present in ultra-thin conventional SiO.sub.2 dielectrics and avoids the formation of a native oxide layer at the interface between the silicon substrate and the dielectric. Epitaxial films can be grown on vicinal silicon substrates and amorphous films on regular silicon substrates to form the high dielectric gate oxide.
Magneto-optical storage media designed for optical storage systems such as disk drives with optical flying heads. Dielectric layers are designed and implemented to maximize optical coupling between the flying optical head and the media and to reduce variations of signals with flight height of the flying optical head.
