A STUDY OF ULTRA-THIN FILM ION-BEAM DEPOSITED (IBD) HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS-CARBON (A-C-H) USING ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPY (AFM) AND TRANSMISSION ELECTRON-MICROSCOPY (TEM)

The growing importance of ultra-thin DLC as applied to overcoats for m agnetic recording head/slider assemblies for hard disk drive systems r equires an in-depth understanding of the fundamental mechanisms occurr ing during growth. With this aim a characterisation study of ultra-thi n film (< 100 nm) hydrocarbon ion beam deposited (IBD) hydrogenated am orphous carbon (a-C:H) has been undertaken. Deposition was carried out onto argon cleaned (100) p-type silicon and Al2O3-TiC (70:30 wt%), th e latter of which is commonly employed as a substrate for magnetic rec ording head/slider fabrication. AFM analysis of 10 nm a-C:H deposited using an energy of 200 eV per carbon atom has identified the generatio n of surface morphology on silicon during growth that is not observed during a-C:H growth on Al2O3-TiC deposited at the same time. TEM analy sis of a similar a-C:H film on silicon suggests that the observed feat ures are nanocrystallites (similar to 75 nm) embedded in a two-phase m atrix containing nanocrystalline (< 5 nm) graphite. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.