Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Investigation of wear resistance and lifetime of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated glass disk in flying height measurement process

  • Technical Paper
  • Published:
Microsystem Technologies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Flying height has been greatly reduced to less than 10 nm to achieve high-density magnetic storage. This leads to significant disk wear especially, glass disks used in flying height measurement process. This paper reports the utilization of diamond-like carbon (DLC) overcoat to increase the wear resistance and lifetime of commercial glass disks in a flying height tester. Wear resistance of the DLC coated glass disks was investigated in wear test using a triboindentor. The results showed significant wear resistance improvement of the coated disk where the wear depth reduced from 62.2 nm on an uncoated disk to 5–7 nm on 15-nm thick DLC coated disks. Furthermore, lifetime measurement of the coated disk has been performed in a flying height tester. As a result, lifetime of the coated disk has been drastically improved by more than 30 times in comparison to an uncoated disk.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bai M, Kato K et al (2000) Scratch-wear resistance of nanoscale super thin carbon nitride overcoat evaluated by AFM with diamond tip. Surf Coat Tech 126:181–194

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhushan B (1999) Chemical, mechanical and tribological characterization of ultra-thin and hard amorphous carbon coatings as thin as 3.5 nm: recent developments. Diamond Relat. Mater. 8(11):1985–2015

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhushan B, Gupta BK, Azarian MH (1995) Nanoindentation, microscratch, friction, and wear studies of coatings for contact recording applications. Wear 181:743–758

    Google Scholar 

  • Daniels BK, Brown DW, Kimock FM (1997) Friction and wear performance of diamond-like carbon, boron carbide, and titanium carbide coatings against glass. Mater Res 12(9):2485–2492

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erdemir A, Donnet C (2006) Tribology of diamond-like carbon films: recent progress and future prospects. J Phys D Appl Phys 39:R311–R327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hainsworth SV, Uhure NJ (2007) Diamond like carbon coatings for tribology: production techniques, characterization methods and applications. Inter Mater Rev 52(3):153–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hua W, Liu B et al (2010) Contact recording review. Microsyst Technol 16(4):493–503

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Lacey C (1994) Method and apparatus to calibrate intensity and determine fringe order for interferometric measurement of small spacing. US Patent 5,280,340

  • Lee S-C, Strom BD (2008) Characterization of thermally actuated pole tip protrusion for head-media spacing adjustment in hard disk drives. ASME Trans J Tribol 130(2):022001-1

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu B, Yu SK et al (2007) Air-bearing design towards highly stable head-disk interface at ultralow flying height. IEEE Trans Magn 42(2):715–720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luo JK, Fu YQ et al (2007) Diamond and diamond-like carbon MEMS. J Micromech Microeng 17(7):S147–S163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robertson J (2002) Diamond-like amorphous carbon. Mater Sci Eng R 37:129–281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rymuza Z (1999) Control tribological and mechanical properties of MEMS surfaces. Microsyst Technol 5:173–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sundararajan S, Bhushan B (1999) Micro/nanotribology of ultra-thin hard amorphous carbon coatings using atomic force/friction force microscopy. Wear 225:678–689

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Takai O, Tajima N, Saze H, Sugimura H (2001) Nanoindentation studies on amorphous carbon nitride thin films prepared by shielded arc ion plating. Surf Coat Tech 142:719–723

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vakis AI, Polycarpou AA (2010) Optimization of the thermal fly-height control slider geometry for Tbit/in2 recording. Microsyst Technol 16(6):1021–1034

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wood R (2000) The feasibility of magnetic recording at 1 terabit per square inch. IEEE Trans Magn 36:36–42

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following people at Western Digital (Thailand) for support in sample preparation and experiment: Theerasak Sa-nguanmanasak, Payung Muangngam, Theerawat Kaewmanee, Sonthirat Klankrong, Phuwanai Bunnak and Latchanan Rakkhatham. This work was supported by Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) in HDD Advanced Manufacturing, Institute of Field Robotics, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi and National Electronics and Computer Technology, National Science and Technology Development Agency under the grant no. HDD 04-01-52.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Pathumwan, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand

    Korakoch Phetdee, Alongkorn Pimpin & Werayut Srituravanich

Authors
  1. Korakoch Phetdee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alongkorn Pimpin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Werayut Srituravanich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Werayut Srituravanich.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Phetdee, K., Pimpin, A. & Srituravanich, W. Investigation of wear resistance and lifetime of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated glass disk in flying height measurement process. Microsyst Technol 17, 1373–1379 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-011-1289-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-011-1289-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation