DEVELOPMENT OF HARD CARBON COATINGS FOR THIN-FILM TAPE HEADS

Major problems in thin-film recording heads are pole tip/gap recession in the inductive head and scratching/smearing, electrical short, elec trostatic charge build up, and corrosion of the MR stripe in the MR he ads. Wear of head structure can be minimized by depositing a hard carb on coating over the entire ABS including the head structure. In this s tudy, we have deposited carbon coatings on Ni-Zn ferrite and Al2O3-TiC substrates and dummy heads by various deposition techniques and chara cterized for mechanical and tribological properties, Ion beam carbon c oatings on Ni-Zn ferrite and cathodic are carbon coatings on Al2O3-TiC heads exhibit most wear resistance compared to other coatings in a ta pe drive test.