Silicon/carbon protection of metallic magnetic structures
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsBernard S. Meyerson, Rajiv V. Joshi, Robert Rosenberg, Vishnubhai V. Patel
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Abstract
A superior wear-resistant coating is provided for metallic magnetic recording layers, where the improved coating is a hard carbon layer that is strongly bound to the underlying metallic magnetic recording layer by an intermediate layer of silicon. The silicon layer can be very thin, with a minimum thickness of a few atomic layers, and provides strong adhesion between the hard carbon protective layer and the metallic magnetic recording layer. A preferred technique for depositing both the intermediate silicon layer and the hard carbon layer is plasma deposition, since both of these depositions can be performed in the same reactor without breaking vacuum.
Claims19
A magnetic recording medium, including:
- a substrate,
- a metallic magnetic recording layer on said substrate, said metallic layer being capable of storing information therein,
- a protective coating for said metallic magnetic layer including a first continuous layer comprised of silicon deposited on said metallic magnetic recording layer, said silicon layer being deposited to a thickness less than 500 angstroms, and a nongraphitic hard carbon layer deposited on said silicon layer, said carbon layer having a thickness of about 25 angstroms--1 micron.
A magnetic recording medium, including:
- a metallic magnetic recording layer on said substrate, said metallic layer being capable of storing information therein,
- a protective coating for said metallic magnetic layer comprising amorphous continuous silicon plasma-deposited on said metallic magnetic layer to a thickness less than 500 angstroms and nongraphitic amorphous hard carbon plasma-deposited on said amorphous silicon, said hard carbon having a thickness less than about 1 micron.
A method for producing a metallic magnetic recording medium comprising the steps of:
- depositing a metallic magnetic recording layer on a substrate, said metallic recording layer being capable of storing information therin,
- depositing a continuous layer of silicon to a depth less than about 100 angstroms on said metallic magnetic recording layer by plasma deposition in a reactor, said plasma deposition decomposing a gas including a gas source of silicon, and
- plasma depositing a layer of nongraphitic hard carbon to a thickness less than about one micron on said deposited silicon layer, said plasma deposition of carbon occurring in said reactor by the introduction of a gaseous species including carbon into said reactor while maintaining substantially the same vacuum level in said reactor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.