Excellent wear life of silicon nitride/tetrahedral amorphous carbon bilayer overcoat on functional tape heads

Abstract

Developing ultrathin and highly wear-resistant overcoats for magnetic tape heads is one of the current research areas of interest, because of its potential to delay pole tip recession and increase the operational lifetime of high areal density tape drives. Using optimized process conditions and an appropriate overcoat design, we report on the development of a ∼20 nm thick silicon nitride/tetrahedral amorphous carbon (Si/SiNx/ta-C) bilayer overcoat, where the ta-C film was deposited by a filtered cathodic vacuum arc process. The bilayer overcoat deposited on a functional tape head survived 40–50 × 106 m of testing with commercial tape media under standard industrial testing conditions. The excellent wear resistance of the overcoat was attributed to the generation of high (∼72%) sp3 carbon content and the formation of strong interfacial bonds, such as Si-C, C=N, nitrile, and (Al, Ti)N at the interfaces, as confirmed by various spectroscopic techniques. This study demonstrates the pivotal role of high sp3 carbon bonding combined with enhanced interfacial bonding in developing an ultrathin yet durable protective overcoat for magnetic tape heads.