THIN FILM MAGNETIC HEADS

Abstract: A thin film magnetic head is characterised by the use of a substrate predominantly comprising zirconia. In preferred em­ bodiments, the substrate is a ceramic compact comprising 4 to 45% by volume of a component A, 55 to 96% by volume of a component Band at most 3% by volume of unavoidable impu­ rities, wherein component A is at least one member selected from the group consisting of carbides, nitrides, carbonitrides, carboxides, oxynitrides and carboxynitrides of Group IVa, Va and VIa elements of Periodic Table and mixtures or solid solu­ tions thereof, and component B is ZrO₂ consisting of at least 70% by weight of tetragonal and/or cubic zirconia, the balance being monoclinic zirconia. Preferably at least one member se­ lected from the group consisting of oxides of Group IIIa el­ ements of Periodic Table, CaO and MgO, and mixtures thereof is dissolved to form a solid solution.

Description: This invention relates to a thin film magnetic head and more particularly, it is concerned with a substrate for a thin film magnetic head which is suitable for recording density. Generally, bulk heads composed of finely processed ferrite materials have been employed as magnetic heads for magnetic recording and reading. However, these magnetic heads have reached the limit in respect of the fine processing or machining and the permeability of ferrites to meet the lately rising demands for higher recording density and so thin film magnetic heads have been developed. Some thin film magnetic heads have been put to practical use as magnetic disc heads for large-sized computers, but their use is not general owing to difficulty in providing a suitable substrate material and also low yield. A thin film magnetic head is generally prepared by polishing the surface of a wafer of appropriate size e.g. 50 x 50 mm to give a polished surface with a roughness of 50 Å (5nm) and a smoothness of 1µ, coating the surface with an insulating film Al₂O₃ or SiO₂ of several microns in thickness, forming a predetermined magnetic circuit on the insulating film by sputtering or the like and then cutting out a single head. Therefore, for the mass production of such a thin film magnetic head, it is very important to find a suitably machinable substrate material having characteristics such as dimensional precision and surface smoothness in addition to the suitability for use in techniques requiring the formation of magnetic circuits and insulating films. Up to the present time, ferrites and Al₂O₃-TiC ceramics have been proposed for substrate materials and, in particularly Al₂O₃-TiC ceramics have been considered most useful. However, in practice, these materials do not satisfy all of the requirements for machinability, mechanical properties and uniformity of structure, and particularly, their yield is comparatively low. In particular, ceramic materials having otherwise excellent mechanical properties and uniform structures are generally inferior in machinability so that they tend to exhibit chipping when they are sliced. Several ceramics have been made in attempts to improve the mechanical properties and uniformity of structure. EP-A-0135915 (Art 54131) discloses a structure which contains 20-55 weight % of titanium carbide, the remaining substantial component being aluminium oxide. 5-60 mol % of the aluminium oxide in this composition may be replaced by zirconium oxide. In US-A-4316964 an Al₂O₃/ZrO₂ ceramic is disclosed wherein the ZrO₂ component occupies from 5-95% of the volume. In JP-A-58-121179 a magnetic slider is disclosed which is made of zirconia ceramics comprising at most 30 mol % of at least one of CaO, MgO, Al₂O₃ and Y₂O₃. It is an object of embodiments of the present invention to provide a new substrate material suitable for use in thin film magnetic heads, and in particular to provide a novel ceramic substrate which has suitable mechanical properties as well as machinability. It is a further object of embodiments of the present invention to provide a substrate material for a thin film magnetic head, in particular, which is resistant to chipping during slicing. The present invention comprises a ceramic substrate for a think film magnetic head comprising 4 to 45% by volume of a component A, 55 to 96% by volume of a component B and at most 3% by volume of unavoidable impurities, wherein component A is at least one of, or a mixture or solid solution consisting of more than one of, a carbide, a nitride, a carbonitride, a carboxide, an oxynitride or a carboxynitride of a Group IVa, Va or Group VIa elements of the Periodic Table; and Component B is zirconia consisting of 70% by weight or more of tetragonal and/or cubic structure, at least one member from the group consisting of oxides of Group IIIa elements of the Periodic Table, and mixtures thereof being dissolved to form a solid solution with the zirconia. The substrate material of the present invention has a suitable hardness as well as excellent mechanical strength and machinability and can thus be machined into a head with a high yield (i.e. a low failure rate), while that of the prior art, consisting predominantly of Al₂O₃, has a greater hardness but insufficient mechanical strength, thus being difficult to machine properly. The ZrO₂ phase is the predominant phase in the ceramic composition of the present invention and is in a proportion of 55 to 96% by volume to the sintered compact thereof. If it is less than 55% by volume, the proportion of ZrO₂ will be too small to provide adequate mechanical strength and machinability, while if it is more than 96% by volume, the hardness will be insufficient and the substrate's electro-conductivity is lessened, making the substrate susceptible to the accumulation of static charge. Impurities incorporated unaboidably during the process are in a proportion of at most 3% by volume. As mentioned, the ZrO₂ phase is at least 70% by weight of tetragonal or cubic structure. If the proportion of monoclinic zirconia is increased, micro-cracks tend to form during cooling after sintering, thus resulting in marked lowering of the mechanical strength. Preparation of a magnetic thin film head may be performed by, for example, hot-pressing and sintering a ceramic composition as set forth above to obtain a compact, working the compact into a wafer, polishing the wafer surface using a diamond wheel, coating the polished surface with an insulating film (for example by vapour deposition of Al₂O₃ or SiO₂), slicing the wafer by means of a diamond wheel, forming a magnetic head circuit on the insulating film by sputtering, slicing and assembling into a magnetic head. When using a ceramic composition containing zirconia as a predominant component according to the present invention, chipping hardly takes place during slicing and thin film magnetic heads can be produced with high yield. The accompanying drawings illustrate examples wherein: Figure 1(A) is a microphotograph showing the chipping state of a sliced surface in the ceramic substrate; and Figure 1 (B) is a microphotograph showing the same of a commercially available Al₂O₃-TiC compact for comparison. EXAMPLE 1 A coprecipitated powder of ZrO₂-3 mol % Y₂O₃ was mixed with 21% by weight (25% by volume) of TiC powder with a mean grain size of 0.1µ (as measured by a microscope) and hot-pressed at 1500°C and 300 kg/cm² for 1 hour to obtain a zirconia compact with a theoretical density ratio of 100% and a mean grain size of 0.5µ. The resulting compact and a commercially available Al₂O₃-TiC compact were machined into wafers, polished to give a surface roughness of 100 Å, coated with Al₂O₃ in a thickness of 10µ by vapour deposition and then subjected to slicing using a diamond wheel. Consequently, it was found that the zirconia compact had few voids as defects on the wafer surface after polishing and exhibited an excellent smoothness. As to the chipping of the edges by slicing, the zirconia compact showed 1 and Al₂O₃-TiC compact for comparison showed about 10, represented by a relative value of existence density of chippings of at least 10µ occurring on the sliced surface. Figure 1 (A) and Figure 1 (B) show respectively the states of both the compacts after slicing. The zirconia compact wafer was provided with a magnetic head circuit by patterning, sliced and then assembled into a flying disc head which was then subjected to assessment of the characteristics as a magnetic head, while the comparative sample was similarly treated. The results obtained are shown under samples (1) and (10) respectively in Table 1. EXAMPLE 2 ZrO₂ powder and a dispersion phase component powder with a composition as shown in each of Examples (2) to (9) in Table 1 were charged in an Al₂O₃ pot using Al₂O₃ balls with water, mixed and ground by a wet process for 72 hours. The resulting slurry was dried and sintered at 1600°C and 300 kg/cm² for 2 hours by a vacuum hot press. A sample was cut out of the thus resulting compact and then subjected to assessments of the transverse rupture strength, electroconductivity, hardness, smoothness of lapping surface, number of chippings occurring during slicing by a diamond wheel and crystalline systems. The various samples were thus treated to give results shown in Table 1. For comparison, the commercially available Al₂O₃-TiC substrate (Sample No. 10) was treated in the similar manner to give the results shown in Table 1. EXAMPLE 3 According to the invention the procedure of Example 1 was repeated except using, as the hard phase, Ti 0.5 W 0.5 C, TiC 0.5 N 0.5 , TiO 0.3 N 0.7 and TiC 0.5 N 0.2 O 0.3 instead of TiC and subjected to a similar assessment, thus obtaining the results shown in Table 2. It wad found that the use of these hard phases was effective. EXAMPLE 4 The sintered compacts obtained in Example 2 were worked into thin film magnetic heads and practically used as a flying disc head. Consequently, it was found that the performance of these thin film magnetic heads favourably compared with that using the Al₂O₃-TiC substrate of the prior art. EXAMPLE 5 The procedure of Example 1 was repeated, omitting TiC; a thin film magnetic head with a similarly good performance was obtained.

Claims: A thin film magnetic head having a substrate consisting of a ceramic compact comprising 4 to 45% by volume of component A, 55 to 96% by volume of component B and at most 3% by volume of unavoidable impurities, wherein component A is at least one of, or a mixture or solid solution consisting of more than one of, a carbide, a nitride, a carbonitride, a carboxide, an oxynitride or a carboxynitrides of an element in Group IVa, Va or VIa elements of the Periodic Table, and component B is zirconia consisting of at least 70% by weight of tetragonal and/or cubic structure, at least one member from the group consisting of oxides of Group IIIa elements of the Periodic Table and mixtures thereof being dissolved to form a solid solution with the zirconia.

Inventors: KAMIJO, EIJI C/O ITAMI WORKS, TAKEDA, YOSHINOBU C/O OSAKA WORKS, YAMAKAWA, AKIRA C/O ITAMI WORKS
Applicants: SUMITOMO ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES LIMITED
Application year: 1985
Main classification: G11B5
IPC codes: H01F10, C04B35, G11B5