Protective layer for magnetic disk

摘要

A magnetic recording disk composed of a substrate, a magnetic layer, and a protective/lubricative carbon layer is etched and has oxygen embedded into the surface of the disk. This carbon/oxygen surface is extremely smooth, and wears better than prior art disks not having oxygen imbedded in the surface. This altered layer enables a magnetic disk to undergo over twice the number of start/stop cycles without incurring damage from magnetic transducers used to read information from the recording than similar disks prepared without oxygen in the outer layer. A method of plasma etching is used to embed the oxygen into the surface.