Ultrathin diamond-like carbon films deposited by filtered carbon vacuum arcs

摘要

Ultrathin (< 5 nm) hard carbon films are of great interest to the magneticstorage industry as the areal density approaches 100 Gbit/in(sup 2). These films are used as overcoats to protect the magnetic layers on disk media and the active elements of the read-write slider. Tetrahedral amorphous carbon films can be produced by filtered cathodic arc deposition, but the films will only be accepted by the storage industry only if the 'macroparticle' issue has been solved. Better plasma filters have been developed over recent years. Emphasis is put on the