the easy axis wherein it is evident that the resultant magnetization becomes sharper and or more symmetric at the written transition locations when the deviation angles of the easy axis are smaller additional advantages of the inventive media include reduced grain size distributions and the ability to fabricate granular media with ultra small grain sizes via reactive oxidation sputtering processing according to an illustrative but non limitative embodiment of the invention each of the columnar shaped magnetic grains comprises two overlying sub layers with different magnetic material composition a first sub layer at the first upper end of each of the magnetic grains is comprised of cocrx 1 first magnetic material where x 1 is at least one element selected from the group consisting of ta pt b v c nd cu zr fe p o si and ni with a magnetic moment m r from about 200 to about 800 emu cc a relatively high perpendicular anisotropy field h k from about 8 000 to about 20 000 oe a thickness u03b4 1 from about 6 to about 25 nm and a grain size from about 4 to about 10 nm a second sub layer at the second lower end of each of the magnetic grains is comprised of cox 2 second magnetic material where x 2 is at least one element selected from the group consisting of c b cr pt o fe ta cu nd ni and ti with a magnetic moment m r from about 400 to about 900 emu cc a relatively low perpendicular anisotropy field h k from about 1 000 to about 9 000 oe a thickness u03b4 2 from about 3 to about 15 nm and.