| The current goal in the magnetic storage industry is to reach the areal density of 1Tbit/in2 in a few years. This requires the head-media spacing (HMS), which includes media overcoat, lubricant layer, air bearing, and head overcoat, not to exceed 5.0 nm. Trade-off between these layers results in requiring the protective overcoat to be 1.0 nm or less. The protective overcoat must be hard, wear-resistant, continuous, thermally stable, and compatible with the magnetic layer and lubricant. This thesis work is mainly to develop protective overcoat for ultra high density hard disk drives (HDD).; Amorphous carbon nitride (a-CNx) thin films were synthesized using pulseDC magnetron sputtering. The influence of substrate bias, substrate tilt, and substrate rotation on film growth and properties was studied. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) was used to measure film density, roughness and thickness. Surface roughness and thickness measurements from XRR are comparable to AFM and surface profiler measurements respectively. a-CNx films have good mechanical properties. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and high resolution transmission microscope (HRTEM) were used to obtain the film composition and microstructure. HRTEM cross sectioned experiments showed that CN x film is amorphous. Chemical corrosion experiments display drastic decrease of corrosion spots for thin films synthesized under optimum conditions.; In pursuit of new materials for hard disk drive protective overcoat, boron carbide (B4C) and boron carbon nitride (BxC yNz) thin films were synthesized by pulse-DC magnetron sputtering. Effects of target power, target pulse frequency, substrate bias and pulse frequency on surface roughness were studied by AFM. Nitrogen incorporation into B4C films, which gives BxCyNz thin films, has a beneficial effect to decrease the film roughness. Auger electron spectroscopy was used to characterize the film composition. High-resolution cross-sectioned TEM studies showed that both films are amorphous. Corrosion studies indicated that BxCyNz is a better protective overcoat for hard disk drives than B4C and CNx films. This is attributed mainly to the smoother morphology of BxCyN z films. BxCyNz was found to be a very promising material for next generation hard disk drives. |
