Chemistry: electrical and wave energy – Processes and products – Coating – forming or etching by sputtering
Patent
1997-06-20
1999-12-07
Achutamurthy, Ponnathapura
Chemistry: electrical and wave energy
Processes and products
Coating, forming or etching by sputtering
20419232, 216 22, 216 77, C23C 1400, B44C 122
Patent
active
059977000
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating a magnetic head slider for use in recording information in a magnetic disk, tape, and the like and playing back the information, and particularly to a method of working on an air bearing surface of a thin film magnetic head slider, which is a component of a magnetic head.
2. Description of the Related Art
A flying magnetic head for use in, for example, a hard disk drive is provided with a magnetic head transducer and a magnetic head slider (hereinafter sometimes referred to merely as "slider"). The slider is a component that flies by the agency of air pressure caused by the magnetic disk rotation so as to keep the magnetic head transducer distanced from the magnetic disk and is provided with grooves (air bearing grooves) on a back surface (air bearing surface) thereof for controlling the air pressure.
As a result of a recording density of the magnetic disk becoming higher in recent years, it is now required that a flying height of the magnetic head from the magnetic disk be reduced. A negative pressure cavity slider as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,856 etc. represents an art meeting such requirement.
The negative pressure cavity slider is structured such that the air pressure occurring on the air bearing surface thereof is precisely controlled by the calculated effect of specifically-shaped grooves formed on the air bearing surface. As a result, variation in the flying height of the magnetic head caused by variation in a linear velocity and skew angle of the magnetic disk is minimal, thereby enabling variation in spacing loss between the magnetic head and the magnetic disk to be minimized.
It was difficult to fabricate the negative pressure cavity slider by mechanical working with the use of a grinder and the like since the air bearing grooves thereof are formed in a complex shape of a curve combined with a plurality of straight lines, unlike conventional linear-shaped grooves called slider rails.
Thereupon, a method of working on the negative pressure cavity slider has been proposed whereby the air bearing grooves are formed thereon with the use of the so called sputter-etching method. In this method, the air bearing grooves are etched on a slider substrate utilizing the effect of sputtering by argon plasma.
For example, an ion beam etching process and ion milling process with the use of a thin film or a photo resist as a mask were disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication Nos. 56-74862 and 60-205879. Also, another ion beam etching process with the use of a dry film resist as a mask was disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 61-120326. These processes all belong to the sputter-etching method since in an ion beam etching apparatus and ion milling apparatus employed, respectively, in carrying out said processes, the slider substrate is etched by means of ion bombardment by argon ions evolved when plasma excitation of argon gas is caused to occur.
However, there have been pointed out a few problems with such methods as described above relying on the sputter-etching by argon plasma.
A first problem is so called "redeposition" wherein compounds sputtered out of the slider substrate by the ion bombardment are deposited back on the slider substrate again. The "redeposition" has been described in "Electron-Ion Beam Handbook, second edition", p. 487, published by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, and also in a number of technical publications.
A typical example of the redeposition is described hereinafter with reference to FIGS. 23A and 23B. Along with progress in the etching process by argon ions 25, molecules and atoms sputtered out of a slider substrate 1 build up mainly on a wall face 26 of a mask 2 such as a resist and the like, and a wall face 27 of each of the air bearing grooves 29 formed by the etching process, thus forming a redeposition layer 28.
Meanwhile, as the etching process by the argon ions 25 proceeds substantially in parallel with formation of the aforesaid redepositio
REFERENCES:
patent: 3811856 (1974-05-01), Ruszczyk et al.
patent: 5445710 (1995-08-01), Hori et al.
patent: 5607599 (1997-03-01), Ichihara et al.
The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan--DPS 1995--Proceedings of Symposium on Dry Process--Nov. 1-3, 1995.
Electron-Ion Beam Handbook--2nd. Edition.
Fukushima Nobuto
Horiike Yasuhiro
Achutamurthy Ponnathapura
Citizen Watch Co. Ltd.
Ponnalun P
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