Conference paper

Micro-wear scan test on the carbon overcoats as thin as 6 nm or less

Abstract

Nitrogen-doped carbon (CNx) overcoats, ranging from 1 to 6 nm in thickness, were deposited on magnetic recording disks by a DC-sputtering process. A critical load, based on the first occurrence of coating damage, was used as a semi-quantitative measure of the mechanical strength of these overcoats. It was found that the critical load decreased in a nearly linear manner with the CNx thickness from 6 nm down to approximately 2 nm regime. However, the 1 mn thick CNx coating deviated from this trend with a significant decrease in critical load. High-resolution SEM was employed to find the critical loads as well as to reveal the details of the coating wear morphology and the CNx failure mechanism.

T.N. Morgan

Semiconductor Science and Technology