Characterization and formation mechanism understanding of asperities to be burnished

To achieve rigorous glide performance for ultra-low flying height, disk media with asperities that exceed the flying height of the magnetic head must be eliminated. Burnishing process is one of the critical ways to remove such asperities from the disk surface. A successful burnishing process demonstrating improved disk yields and less disk damages depends on an effective burnish head that is designed by the understanding of asperities to be burnished. However, optimization of sputtering process is the most essential to avoid those asperities on the disk surface and strongly relies on the formation mechanism understanding of the asperities. It was attempted to trace and characterize the asperities on specially prepared disks in this work. Experimental studies after aggressive burnishing processes on the disks categorized the asperities and indicated their possible formation mechanisms.