JPH1153727A - Floating type magnetic head slider and its processing - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a slider generating no adsorption phenomenon between a head spider and a disk by adding a simple processing process in a magnetic disk device. SOLUTION: A spider base stock 1 is constituted by comprising Al2 O3 and TiC as an essential effective components, a rover is cut out from a magnetic head wafer on which plural magnetic conversion elements are formed by a thin film process, a prescribed relief pattern is made on the slider base stock by dry etching, a masking material for etching is removed, TiC component is selectively removed from the vicinity of a surface of a floating plane 11 by dry-etching a whole surface of the floating plane 11 by using a gaseous fluorinated carbon or gaseous oxygen to form minute ruggedness on almost whole surface of the floating plane. Area of recessed parts is adjusted by changing composition ratio of Al2 O3 and TiC contained in the slider base stock within the range of Al2 O3 :TiC=50:50 to 90:10 (atomic %).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a floating magnetic head and, more particularly, to processing of a flying surface of a slider.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A magnetic head used in a hard disk drive as a large-capacity storage device is operated during operation of the device.
The slider flies above the disk due to the airflow near the disk surface accompanying the rotation of the magnetic disk. However, while the apparatus is stopped, the slider is stationary with the slider in contact with the disk. FIG. 1 schematically shows an outline of an example of a slider, in which 1 is a slider, and 11 is a floating surface of the slider facing the disk (a surface that receives airflow for floating, Air
Bearing Surface (abbreviation: ABS), 12 is a front end face which is a front side in the traveling direction of the slider relative to the disk (actually, the slider stops and the disk rotates and moves rearward), 13 Is a rear end face on the rear side in the advancing direction. Usually, a magnetic transducer (read element and write element) is formed here by a thin film process.

[0003] Both the flying surface of the slider and the surface of the disk are required to be mirror-finished to keep the flying height constant. However, as shown in FIG. In general, an "attraction" phenomenon occurs between the mirror-finished floating surface 10 and the surface 60 of the disk 6 and hinders the start of the disk. Therefore, as shown in FIG. A surface roughening process 61 called “texture” is performed to avoid adsorption between mirror surfaces.

However, in recent years, if the flying height of the slider is set to a small value such as 30 to 50 nm with an increase in the recording density, the texture of the disk in the conventional texture processing causes a rough surface of the disk (usually, a peak and a peak). The difference in valley height is 1
0 ~ 20nm, the gap between the peaks is 100 ~ 20
0 nm) is too large, and the ratio of the distance from the pole end of the magnetic transducer to the top of the concave and convex ridges of the disk to the bottom of the concave and convex valleys of the disk has become so large that it cannot be ignored. The disk surface has required a flatter mirror finish. For this reason, prevention of adsorption by another method is considered. For example, zone texture processing and foot pad DLC processing have been proposed.

[0005]

In the zone texturing, texturing is performed only on a necessary portion in the disk surface. In this case, if the head stops just at the mirror surface due to a device failure, it is attracted. There is an inconvenience. The foot pad DLC process is a process in which a DLC (Diamond-like Carbon film) is partially applied to the flying surface of the head slider. In this case, the process is as follows.
There is an inconvenience that a troublesome process such as pattern cutting → deposition → mask removal is added.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to form an appropriate amount of fine irregularities on the flying surface of a head slider, thereby avoiding the phenomenon of attraction between the slider and the disk. It is another object of the present invention to provide a processing method capable of forming a desired amount of minute unevenness by a simple process for forming minute unevenness on a head slider.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A floating magnetic head slider according to the present invention has minute flyings formed on almost the entire floating surface thereof. Further, the floating type magnetic head slider according to the present invention comprises a slider material containing Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC having different etching rates as main effective components, and a TiC component which is easily etched from a region corresponding to the flying surface. Is removed by selective etching to form a concave portion, and the remaining Al ₂
The projections are formed by portions mainly containing the O ₃ component, and the minute unevenness is formed.

Further, the present invention relates to a method of processing a floating magnetic head slider, wherein Al ₂ O _{3 is} used as a main active ingredient.
And a slider material containing TiC is prepared, a predetermined relief pattern is formed on the slider material by dry etching, the etching mask material is removed, and the entire floating surface is treated with a fluorocarbon-based gas or an oxygen gas. Dry etching selectively removes the TiC component from the vicinity of the surface of the air bearing surface, thereby forming minute irregularities on the surface.

In forming the irregularities, the TC is removed so that the step between the concave portion where the TiC component is removed and the convex portion where the Al ₂ O ₃ component remains is 2 to 50 nm.
The iC component is selectively etched. In this case, the interval between the tops of the convex portions is on the order of 2 to 3 μm.

[0010] Further, Al contained in the slider material is
The composition ratio of ₂ O ₃ and TiC is set to Al ₂ O ₃ : TiC = 50:
It is devised that the area of the concave portion can be adjusted by changing it in the range of 50 to 90:10 (atomic%).

[0011]

Since an appropriate amount of minute unevenness is formed on the floating surface of the floating type magnetic head slider, it is possible to prevent the slider from sticking to the disk. Further, a slider material is formed by containing Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC having different etching rates as main components, and a TiC component which is easily etched using a fluorocarbon gas or an oxygen gas in a processing step is used. Since dry etching is performed, a desired amount of minute irregularities can be easily formed, and the protective film on the permalloy pole portion does not need to be dented.

[0012]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a floating type magnetic head slider according to the present invention.

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an example of the shape of a slider embodying the present invention, in which a flying surface 11 of the slider 1 is shown facing upward. In the present invention, minute unevenness is provided on the air bearing surface 11 over substantially the entire surface.

First, two kinds of materials, Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC, having greatly different etching rates are used as slider materials.
Is contained as a main component (and other components as necessary) to constitute a slider substrate, on which a number of magnetic transducers are formed by a predetermined thin film process (not shown, but facing upward in the figure). A magnetic head wafer is prepared by attaching the magnetic head wafer 2a along a cutting line shown in FIG. 2 (A), as shown in FIG. 2 (A). Such a row bar 2b is separated. Although not shown, the magnetic transducer is located on the surface facing away from the drawing. Next, the cut row bar 2b is polished to a desired thickness. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 2C, the cut and polished row bar is subjected to pattern cutting for creating a floating surface portion, and dry etching is performed in accordance with the resist pattern to remove the plurality of groove portions 23. And a plurality of floating surface portions 20
Leave.

Next, the resist pattern is removed, and a slider row 2c in which a plurality of slider elements are connected is formed as shown in FIG. Dashed line 30 is
The position where the slider is cut into individual sliders later is shown. In the case of this example, a slider having two air bearing surfaces 20 on each side is completed.

FIG. 4 illustrates the processing of the air bearing surface which is a feature of the present invention. The slider row 2c of FIG. 3 is dry-etched with a fluorocarbon (CF) -based gas or oxygen gas over the entire surface. Then, the TiC component is selectively removed. As a result, a portion mainly composed of the Al ₂ O ₃ component remains, and a floating surface portion 41 on which a large number of minute irregularities are formed is completed. Although this dry etching extends to the groove portion 23 as well as the air bearing surface portion 41, it is useless for the subject of the present invention and does not cause any particular harm. There is no particular problem. Although not shown in this figure, a tapered notch may be formed near the front end of the flying surface rail near the front end of the slider, if necessary.

After this step, a DLC deposition step is interposed if necessary. Next, the slider row is chip-cut at the cutting line 30 and divided into individual head sliders. Thereafter, the process proceeds to an assembly process as a head.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A specific example of processing of a floating surface which is a feature of the present invention will be described in detail. As an etching device,
It is preferable to use an RIE (Reactive Ion Etching) apparatus. An example of preferable processing conditions is: ultimate vacuum: 5 × 10 ⁻⁵ [Torr] Gas type: CF ₄ Gas pressure: 30 [mTorr] Power: 120 [W] Time: 1 [minute] FIG. 5 shows an electron micrograph showing the appearance of minute irregularities on the air bearing surface obtained in this case. The step between the concave portion where the TiC component was removed and the convex portion where the Al ₂ O ₃ component remained was 2 to 50 nm. The distance between the tops of the convex portions was about 2 to 3 μm in a wide area as can be seen from the photograph. In this case, the etching rate of the selective etching is set to 10: 1 or more, preferably 20: 1 or more. The ratio of the composition of Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC contained in the slider material is set in the range of Al ₂ O ₃ : TiC = 50: 50 to 90:10 (atomic%), and by changing the ratio in this range, the concave portion is formed. Adjust the area ratio of.

[0019]

As described above, a slider formed by forming minute irregularities having a depth of less than 100 nanometers as described above has a large number of sliders with respect to the disk surface as schematically shown in FIG. Since the slider is in contact with the minute uneven surface, it is possible to prevent the slider and the disk from being attracted to each other when stopped. Further, in the processing method according to the present invention, since selective etching is performed using a CF-based gas or an oxygen gas utilizing a difference in an etching rate depending on a component of a slider material, a special mask for minute unevenness is not required. In addition, minute irregularities can be formed by a simple processing step, and the area ratio of the concave portion can be adjusted by changing the composition ratio of the slider material. At the same time, since there is no etching effect on the permalloy, it does not affect the magnetic transducer and does not impair the accuracy of the effective flying height.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a slider embodying the present invention, with a flying surface facing upward.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a processing sequence of a slider material in a manufacturing process of the slider of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged perspective view showing a slider material after the processing step of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a slider material showing a state of a flying surface on which a part of FIG. 3 is further enlarged and processed to be a feature of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a micrograph of the air bearing surface of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a side view showing the relationship between a head slider and a magnetic disk in a magnetic disk drive using a slider according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a side view showing a relationship between a head slider and a magnetic disk in a conventional magnetic disk device.

FIG. 8 is a side view showing a relationship between a head slider and a magnetic disk in a magnetic disk device employing a conventional improvement.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Slider, 10 ... Floating surface, 11 ... Floating surface, 12 ... Front end surface, 13 ... Rear end surface, 2a ... Magnetic head wafer, 2b ...
Row bar, 2c: slider row, 20: floating surface portion, 2
3 ... groove portion, 30 separation line, 41 ... floating surface portion with minute unevenness formed, 6 ... disk, 60 disk surface,
61: Textured disk surface

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A floating magnetic head slider in which minute irregularities are formed on almost the entire flying surface. 2. The floating magnetic head slider according to claim 1, wherein the slider material includes two kinds of materials having different etching rates as main effective components, and the flying surface thereof is formed by etching. The fine unevenness is formed by removing a component which is more easily etched from a corresponding region by selective etching. 3. A floating type magnetic head slider according to claim 2, wherein the slider material is constituted by containing Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC as a major active ingredient, TiC from the air bearing surface corresponding area The fine irregularities are formed by removing components by selective etching. 4. The floating magnetic head slider according to claim 2, wherein a main component of a convex portion of the fine irregularities is Al ₂ O ₃ . 5. A processing step of a floating type magnetic head slider, a step of preparing a slider material containing Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC as main effective components, and forming a predetermined relief pattern on the slider material by dry etching. A step of removing a mask material for etching; and a step of dry-etching the entire floating surface using a fluorocarbon-based gas or an oxygen gas to selectively remove a TiC component from a region corresponding to the floating surface. A method of processing a floating magnetic head slider, comprising the step of forming minute irregularities on the slider. 6. A method for processing a floating type magnetic head slider according to claim 5, wherein a portion of the TiC component is concave is removed Al ₂
A method characterized in that the TiC component is selectively etched so that a step at a convex portion where the O ₃ component remains remains 2 to 50 nm. 7. A method for processing a floating type magnetic head slider according to claim 5, the ratio of composition of Al ₂ O ₃ and TiC contained in the slider material _{Al 2 O 3: TiC = 50} : 50-90: 10
(Atom%), wherein the area of the concave portion is adjusted by changing the range.