Preparation Of SiN_x Films On Hard Disk And Property Analysis

Magnetic storage is the most economic form of nonvolatile storage for many applications. With the introduction of giant magnetic-resistive heads, storage densities are increasing at 100% per year. Silicon nitride films are known to be very useful for many different aspects in material science, and it can protect magnetic disks only in 2nm thickness. We have deposited SiNx films in Twinned Microware Electron Cyclotron Resonance (MW-ECR) Plasma Enhanced Unbalance Magnetron Sputtering (PEUMS), and studied the structure and properties of films.FTIR and XPS have been used in order to analyze the chemical structure and properties of films, the properties of tribology are tested by the apparatus of friction and abrasion, and the surface morphology of films is carried out by SEM. In our experiment, we have changed the flow of nitrogen and Si target sputtering power to deposit the different films. The conclusions in this paper are as follows:1) The flow of nitrogen can influence the structure and properties of films greatly. SiNx films contain the redundant Si in the low flow of nitrogen, the hardness is low, and the contents of oxygen are high. With the increasing of the flow of nitrogen, the contents of SiNx raise gradually. When the flow of nitrogen is 2sccm, the hardness of 24.35Gpa and the friction coefficient of 0.058 are attained at the stoichiometric Si₃N₄ composition, the SiNx films are dense and homogeneous, and the roughness and the friction coefficient are low.2) The connection between the structure and properties of films and the flow of nitrogen is closely. When the Si target sputtering power is low, the Si-N stretching mode isn't discovered. With the increasing of Si target sputtering power, the Si-N stretching mode is seen at approximately 867 cm"1. The increasing of hardness is two periods. When the Si target sputtering power is below 150w, the increment of hardness is slow and the hardness is low. When the Si target sputtering power is over 250w, the increment of hardness is fast. When the Si target sputtering power is 350w, the hardness of films is 24.35Gpa. Therefore, Si target sputtering power influences the density of Si atom, and the density of Si atom influences the structure and properties of films too.