Determination and reduction of ion-beam etching induced magnetic dead layer

Si, Wei; Williams, K.; Campo, Mark Del; Mao, Ming; Devasahayam, A.J.; Lee, Chih-Ling

doi:10.1063/1.1851871

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…This result suggests that the DLC3 group, although having a thicker DLC film, may have undergone unintentionally a more aggressive plasma etch exposure, here assigned to natural process variation. IBE1 and IBE2 groups are the most statistically separated pairwise, which is expected since different etch recipes can strongly change the metal surface [14]. It is postulated that non-uniform oxidation of the original surface prior to IBE leads to preferential etching of those more oxidized spots, exacerbating the non-uniformity and surface roughness (and asperities).…”

Section: Applying Different Rationales Comparatively On Different Nif...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of Read/Write Head Shield Asperities in Hard Disk Drives

Souza

2023

MSA

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A new way to characterize asperities on metallic surfaces at the nanometer scale is proposed. Asperities are often treated using conventional statistical descriptors such as average and root mean square roughness, which do not provide adequate mechanistic insight into surface defect formation and mitigation. The new rationale revolves around developing a mathematical description of the evolution of the area occupied by asperities at each height slice on a topography image, with direct implications on how asperity instances are tracked and their risk of breakage leading to potential exposure and degradation of the metal surface upon thermo-mechanical stresses during the operation of read/write heads is assessed. The technique was shown to be disruptive by surpassing all other surface quality metrics, such as conventional roughness and static area % asperity at 0.5 nm height, in its ability to statistically differentiate surfaces coming from various manufacturing process iterations tailored to produce different surface conditions in the hard disk drive industry. A theoretical formulation proposing that the static asperity technique is fundamentally insufficient, is presented and validated experimentally.

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Section: Applying Different Rationales Comparatively On Different Nif...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of Read/Write Head Shield Asperities in Hard Disk Drives

Souza

2023

MSA

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“…With the increase of film thickness, the detection depth of TEY will be impossible to touch the MDL, and the effect of MDL become smaller and smaller. As for the disappearance of atomic ferromagnetic behaviors caused by MDL, there are different physical mechanisms in various sample systems [17][18][19].…”

Section: ) 3 Cos Cosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thickness Effect on Spin Moment in Amorphous Co<sub>0.9</sub>Fe<sub>0.1</sub> Films

Guo

Wang

et al. 2011

AMR

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Utilizing X-ray magnetic circular dichroism spectra the thickness effect on spin moment is examined in amorphous Co0.9Fe0.1films fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering. As film thickness increases from 5nm to 50nm, the variations of spin moments for Fe is a gradual decrease from 1.87μB to 1.70μB, while for Co it increases from 1.41μB to 1.69μB monotonously. Based on magnetic dead layer (MDL) model, the above changes are well explained, and the thickness of MDL, 0.83 nm, is estimated as well. That is not changed with increasing CoFe layer thickness.

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“…1,2 Device applications such as magnetic recording field sensors and magnetic random access memory (MRAM) commonly use exchange biased thin films [3][4][5] to optimize device performance. During ion milling, device films are exposed to energetic ions which can modify the magnetic 6,7 and exchange bias properties 8,9 of the films. Clearly device edges are most susceptible to damage during this process, 10 but distinguishing systematic changes in magnetic film properties from random variations in device performance is not trivial.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic degradation of thin film multilayers during ion milling

et al. 2014

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We present a study of Ar ion milling-induced damage in exchange biased IrMn/CoFe/Ag-based magnetic multilayer thin films. While process variations determine the change in CoFe magnetic properties, the distance from the ion milling front to the IrMn/CoFe interface dominates the extent of exchange bias damage. Remarkably, the interfacial coupling energy Jk can be reduced by 50% before any removal of the CoFe pinned layer. We attribute the losses to microstructural changes and damage effects where cap material is driven into the CoFe layer below. Disturbance depth estimates from ion impact simulations agree reasonably with the observed length scales of damage.

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Determination and reduction of ion-beam etching induced magnetic dead layer

Cited by 7 publications

References 5 publications

Characterization of Read/Write Head Shield Asperities in Hard Disk Drives

Characterization of Read/Write Head Shield Asperities in Hard Disk Drives

Thickness Effect on Spin Moment in Amorphous Co<sub>0.9</sub>Fe<sub>0.1</sub> Films

Magnetic degradation of thin film multilayers during ion milling

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