Abstracts---Thin carbon overcoats were deposited on rigid disks of magnetic thin film media by RF diode sputtering using a mixture of argon and nitrogen gas. Constant drag test of thin film head sliders were performed by a computer-controlled friction-wear tester. As the nitrogen partial pressure was increased from o mTorr to 7.5 mTorr, the number of revolutions before wear failure increased from 3000 to 9000 revolution, the catastrophic wear was also found on carbon overcoats deposited on pure argon. The stress distribution on multilayer were also analyzed by Finite Element Method.
The alteration of carbon bonding resulting from the continuous frictional heating between a magnetic head slider and a rotating thin film rigid disk has been investigated. This change of carbon bonding from diamondlike amorphous carbon phase to graphite phase was inspected by Scanning Auger Microscopy (SAM). As near and direct contact recording are being considered for future high density disk drives, this phase transformation of the protective carbon overcoating could result in failure of the head-disk interface.
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