Abstract
Corrosion of the disk has been an ongoing concern for the manufacturers of hard disk drives. With the advent of magnetoresistive (MR) head, very low levels of corrosion and contamination become more critical since the raised defects and corrosion products on the disk surface-anything that heats the MR sensor due to the contact-can distort the output signal of the head. This phenomenon is called as thermal asperity. In this paper, the effect of corrosion as a form of Co migration on the occurrence of thermal asperity in MR drives was investigated. The corrosion test at high temperature (60$^{\circ}C$) and high relative humidity (80%) was emphasized in this study and the testing results at ambient condition were compared. The corrosion on the disks was characterized as the amount of Co ion migration using an ion chromatography (IC) and a time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS). It is proved that corrosion on the disk surface after storage testing is closely correlated to the amount of Co ions migration from the magnetic layer to disk surfaces and higher Co migration causes more thermal asperities in the drive. In order to reduce Co migration, several methods such as burnishing process and structure of the carbon overcoat were investigated. It is found that the hydrogenated carbon overcoat shows the least Co migration among different types of overcoat layer. However, the most effective way to reduce Co migration is the application of Cr layer between the overcoat and the magnetic alloy layer.
