Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) is a promising technology for next generation hard
disk drives with significantly increased data recording capacities. In HAMR, an optical near-field
transducer (NFT) is used to concentrate laser energy on a magnetic recording medium to fulfill the
heat assist function. The key components of a NFT are transducer material, cladding material, and
adhesion material between the cladding and the transducer materials. Since transducer materials
and cladding materials have been widely reported, this paper focuses on the adhesion materials
between the Au transducer and the Al2O3 cladding material. A comparative study for two kinds of
adhesion material, Ta and Cr, has been conducted. We found that Ta provides better thermal stability
to the whole transducer than Cr. This is because after thermal annealing, chromium forms oxide
material at interfaces and chromium atoms diffuse remarkably into the Au layer and react with Au
to form Au alloy. This study also provides insights on the selection of adhesion material for
HAMR transducer.
License type:
PublisherCopyrights
Funding Info:
Description:
Copyright (2015) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in J. Appl. Phys. 117, 17A918 (2015) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4916807.