RADIO-FREQUENCY ION-BEAM DEPOSITION OF DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON FOR SLIDERS AND HEADS

Diamond-like carbon prepared by direct ion beam deposition from a fila mentless rf ion source has been found to have properties suitable for protective coatings on sliders and heads. One advantage of the rf indu ctively coupled plasma source used in this study is that it can be ope rated reliably for hundreds of hours with high concentrations of hydro carbon gas. We have studied deposition from argon-CH4 mixtures with 28 % to 100% CH4 and beam energies mainly in the 100 to 400 eV range. X-r ay photoemission spectra analysis shows that films prepared with pure CH4 have less sp(3) (diamond-like) bonding than films prepared from mi xtures with argon. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.