Tribological and recording performance of carbon-coated thin film head sliders on unlubricated and lubricated thin film media

Author

Wang, Geng ; Yeh, Tse-An ; Sivertsen, John M. ; Judy, Jack H. ; Chen, Ga-Lane

Author_Institution

Dept. of Chem. Eng. & Mater. Sci., Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis, MN, USA

Volume

30

Issue

6

fYear

1994

fDate

11/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

4125

Lastpage

4127

Abstract

A significant improvement in wear performance of the head-disk interface has been obtained by coating thin film head sliders with a carbon thin film. Head sliders were coated with several thicknesses of diamond-like carbon sputtered by two methods: Facing Target Sputtering (FTS) and DC Magnetron Sputtering. The wear performance of standard 3.5" diameter disks with and without lubricant was evaluated by continuous drag testing (CDT). Comparison was made for each disk/head pair by the means of kinetic friction vs the number of revolutions and SEM image of wear features on the wear track. Finally, the signal output and S/N ratio were measured using 70% thin film head sliders uncoated and coated with various carbon thicknesses. The decrease of the output signal from carbon-coated head sliders followed the classical loss relationship fairly well

Keywords

carbon; friction; lubrication; magnetic heads; magnetic recording; magnetic recording noise; magnetic thin film devices; scanning electron microscopy; sputtered coatings; wear; 3.5 in; C; DC Magnetron Sputtering; Facing Target Sputtering; S/N ratio; SEM image; carbon-coated thin film head sliders; continuous drag testing; diamond-like carbon; disks; head-disk interface; kinetic friction; loss relationship; lubricated thin film media; recording performance; signal output; tribological performance; unlubricated thin film media; wear; Coatings; Diamond-like carbon; Friction; Kinetic theory; Lubricants; Magnetic heads; Sputtering; Testing; Thickness measurement; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.334010

Filename

334010