Friction and wear of zirconia overcoated disks

In order to improve the performance of the head-disk interface, various types of protective overcoats are used on magnetic media. The overcoats arc typically on the order of 25-30 nm thick. Sputtered carbon is the most widely used overcoat, but zirconia (Yamashita et al., 1988). SiO₂ and silver have also been used. This paper examines the friction and wear properties of zirconia overcoated disks.