Ultra-thin overcoats for future hard disks

One of the main limitations of increasing the areal density of modern hard disks is to reduce the magnetic spacing at the head-disk interface. This entails the reduction of the thicknesses of the DLC and the PFPE layers which may lead to insufficient protection of the magnetic media against wear and corrosion. This research aimed to resolve this issue by shallow embedment of energetic C⁺ ions into the outermost layer of the magnetic media in commercial disks to create an ultra-thin atomically mixed layer which may offer similar or better wear and corrosion protection as compared to the available commercial hard disks, thereby eliminating the need for a thick separate DLC overcoat layer. Our results indicate that the surface modified commercial media has shown similar wear protection but with improved frictional properties when compared to the as-received commercial media.