JP2002231554A - Method of manufacturing magnetic alloy film and magnetic head - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that, in a process of manufacturing an FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film having superior magnetic characteristics and high corrosion resistance, a composition control is very difficult in the melting manufacture of an FeTaZn sputtering target, because of a low boiling point of Zn, and residual gas in a target made by sintering deteriorates the magnetic characteristics of an obtained magnetic alloy film. SOLUTION: An FeTa target and a Zn target made by melting are electrically discharged at once to make a magnetic alloy film. Zn has an extremely low melting point, compared with Fe and Ta and hence it is difficult to make a Zn alloy sputtering target, but easy to make a high corrosion resistance FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film having uniform and superior magnetic characteristics with a very little impurity content of the residual gas, etc., by sputtering.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for producing a FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film having excellent magnetic properties and high corrosion resistance, and a magnetic head using the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, soft magnetic alloy films having a high saturation magnetic flux density have been developed for magnetic heads in order to meet the demand for higher density of magnetic recording. Above all, JP 62
-210607 (Japanese Patent No. 2136863) and JP-A-3-20444 (Japanese Patent No. 2721562).
As disclosed in US Pat.
A microcrystalline structure film containing a transition metal such as r, Hf, Ta, and Ti and a nonmetallic element such as N and C has excellent soft magnetism, high saturation magnetic flux density, and thermal stability. There are many examples.

[0003]

However, the magnetic alloy film as described above may lack reliability under some environments. That is, when the corrosive substance adheres to the magnetic alloy film due to dew condensation, dust, or the like, corrosion of the magnetic alloy film occurs, and the magnetic characteristics may be deteriorated. Also, in the manufacturing process of the magnetic head, it is necessary to strictly control the degree of contamination of the cleaning liquid or processing water by halogen ions or the like as a means of preventing corrosion, which is a factor that increases the manufacturing cost. Therefore, at present, Cr, Al, R
Studies have been made to improve the corrosion resistance while maintaining the magnetic properties by adding a different element such as h.
In particular, Zn itself becomes a sacrificial electrode and has an effect of preventing corrosion of α-Fe in the film (sacrificial corrosion prevention).
Even with the addition of about atomic percent, the corrosion resistance can be significantly improved.

Incidentally, FeTaN-based magnetic alloy films widely used at present for magnetic heads are generally made of F
e, a sputtering target using Ta as a main material
It can be easily manufactured by performing reactive sputtering in an atmosphere in which N2 is introduced into r. The sputtering target used here has a stable composition with few impurities, usually prepared by melting Fe and Ta in vacuum. However, when manufacturing a sputtering target to which several percent of Zn is added, Zn is dissolved at a temperature exceeding the boiling point of Zn, and Zn is vaporized and escapes, so that it is extremely difficult to control the composition. On the other hand, F
A sputtering target can be manufactured by preparing powders of e, Ta, and Zn and sintering them in an inert gas. In this case, although a sputtering target having a uniform composition can be produced, it is often difficult to obtain a magnetic alloy film having desired characteristics due to the influence of residual gas in the target.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, the present invention provides FeTaZ having both excellent magnetic properties and corrosion resistance suitable for a magnetic head material.
An object of the present invention is to provide a manufacturing method for stably forming an nN magnetic alloy film.

[0006]

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, a magnetic alloy film is formed by simultaneously discharging a conventionally used FeTa alloy target manufactured by vacuum melting and a target of Zn alone. Make it. At this time, the FeTa piece and Z are placed on the same backing plate.
The discharge is roughly divided into a case where the discharge is performed by the composite target to which the n pieces are bonded, and a case where the electrodes provided with the FeTa alloy target and the Zn single target are simultaneously discharged. The former can be either fixed film formation or rotational film formation. In particular, in the case of fixed film formation, by increasing the film formation speed or devising the size and arrangement of the FeTa piece and Zn piece on the target, for example, Zn FeTa with concentration gradient
A ZnN film can also be manufactured. On the other hand, in the latter case, it is indispensable to perform spin film formation, but there is an advantage that the composition can be easily controlled by controlling the power of the Zn simple substance target electrode. However, in this method, the power of each target electrode must be controlled so that Zn can be sufficiently diffused into the film during the heat treatment. There is also a method in which a FeTa alloy target and a FeTaZn composite target are used at the same time, and a rotary film is formed while controlling the power. In any method, FeTaZ in which Zn is uniformly dispersed in the film
An nN film can be obtained stably.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is a method in which an FeTa alloy target and a Zn single target produced by melting are simultaneously discharged, and sputtering is performed in an atmosphere in which N2 gas is introduced into Ar gas. Is carried out to form a magnetic alloy film having a composition of FeTaZnN. The method for producing a magnetic alloy film has a boiling point extremely lower than that of Fe or Ta, and is used as an alloy sputtering target. Even if difficult Zn is used, a high-performance, high-corrosion-resistant FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film that is uniform and has extremely low impurity content such as residual gas as in the case of using a sintered target can be easily produced by sputtering. It is.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, at least one of an FeTa alloy and a Zn simple substance produced by melting is used.
2. The method for producing a magnetic alloy film according to claim 1, wherein a composite target dispersed and arranged on the same backing plate of the pieces is used. In particular, in the case of fixed film formation, it is possible to increase the film formation speed or to make the FeTa piece and Zn on the target
By devising the size and arrangement of the pieces, for example, Z
An FeTaZnN film having a concentration gradient of n can be manufactured.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, an electrode provided with a FeTa alloy target manufactured by melting and a Zn target or a composite target according to the second aspect is simultaneously discharged and the substrate is rotated. The method for producing a magnetic alloy film according to claim 1, wherein the composition is easily controlled by controlling the power of a target electrode containing Zn.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a magnetic device using a magnetic alloy film formed by the manufacturing method according to any one of the first, second and third aspects as a magnetic core. High-performance, high-corrosion-resistant F with a stable composition that is uniform and has a very low content of impurities such as residual gas.
By using the eTaZnN magnetic alloy film, the electromagnetic conversion characteristics are excellent and the reliability is extremely high.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIGS.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a perspective view for explaining a method of manufacturing a magnetic alloy film according to the present embodiment. In FIG. 1, 1 is an FeTa alloy, 2 is pure Zn, and 3 is a packing plate. , 40 are FeTaZn targets, 41 is F
An eTa target, 5 is a substrate, and the method of manufacturing the magnetic alloy film of the present embodiment configured as described above is as follows.
The operation will be described below.

As shown in FIG. 1A, four pieces of FeTa alloy 1 and three pieces of pure Zn2 prepared by vacuum melting are alternately arranged on a rectangular backing plate 3, and a FeTaZn target 40 is formed. And The surface area ratio of FeTa alloy 1 and Zn2 was about 90:10. There is a degree of freedom in the size and shape of each piece, and the method of arrangement, and it can be changed according to the size and positional relationship of the substrate, the target composition,
It is not limited to the shape as in the present embodiment.

The two FeTaZn targets 40 are
Two ordinary FeTa targets 41 were prepared and placed on four electrodes of a carousel type RF magnetron sputtering apparatus, respectively. This is shown in FIG.

When the substrate 5 is rotated, it is set so as to pass through the FeTaZn target 40 and the FeTa target 41 alternately. Although the number and position of each target to be attached depend on the specifications and performance of the apparatus, this time, the Zn was diffused sufficiently after the heat treatment, and the arrangement was such that the deposition rate was increased.

Then, the melted FeTa alloy and the target of Zn alone were simultaneously discharged, and a film having a thickness of about 3 μm was formed on the nonmagnetic ceramic substrate in an atmosphere in which N 2 gas was introduced into Ar gas. . At this time, Fe
The power applied to the Ta target 41 was fixed at 2.0 kW, and the power applied to the FeTaZn target 40 was 1.0 kW.
kW / 1.5 kW / 2.0 kW. Table 1 shows the film forming conditions of the present embodiment.

[0017]

[Table 1]

Subsequently, these samples were subjected to a heat treatment in vacuum at 540 ° C. for 1 hour, and then the magnetic permeability at 1 MHz was measured by a figure 8 coil method and the coercive force was measured by a BH loop tracer. The film composition was determined by EPMA (electron probe micropart analysis). The results were compared with those of the conventional molten FeTa for comparison.
An FeTaN magnetic alloy film (sample No. 1) manufactured using the target 41 and a FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film (sample N) manufactured using the sintered FeTaZn target
O. It is shown in Table 2 together with 2).

[0019]

[Table 2]

As can be seen from this table, the Zn content is F
A FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film which can be controlled by the electric power applied to the eTaZn target 40 and has good magnetic properties without being affected by the residual gas can be obtained.

When the film structure was observed with a TEM (transmission electron microscope), it was confirmed that Zn or its compound was uniformly dispersed near the grain boundaries.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, a FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film having both excellent magnetic properties and corrosion resistance suitable for a magnetic head material can be stably formed.

(Embodiment 2) No. 2 shown in (Table 2)
Nos. 1 and 2 (conventional examples) and A metal-in-gap type magnetic head as shown in FIG. 2 was manufactured using each magnetic alloy film of Example 4 (Example). That is, each magnetic alloy film 6
Is formed on the Mn—Zn single crystal ferrite 8 after the track width regulation processing, the tracks are butted via the magnetic gap 7, and then sealed with the bonding glass 9. The dimensions of the magnetic head are a track width of 11 micrometers and an effective gap length of 0.2 micrometers.

For these three types of heads, 20 MHz
After measuring C / N in the drum tester, 2pp
96 ° C in an environment of 40 ° C and 80% relative humidity containing
The head was left for a while, taken out, and the C / N of the head was measured again under the same conditions. The results are shown in Table 3 in comparison with the conventional example (FeTaN).

[0025]

[Table 3]

As can be seen from this table, the metal-in-gap type magnetic head using the FeTaZnN magnetic alloy film manufactured by the manufacturing method of the present invention has better electromagnetic conversion characteristics than the conventional example, and It was found that there was almost no characteristic deterioration after the environmental test, and that it had excellent corrosion resistance under the actual use environment.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention, the boiling point is F
e, even Zn, which is extremely low compared to Ta and difficult to produce as an alloy sputtering target, is uniform and free from impurities such as residual gas as in the case of using a sintered target, and has excellent magnetic properties. High corrosion resistance F with
An eTaZnN magnetic alloy film can be easily formed by sputtering. According to this manufacturing method, a magnetic head having extremely high reliability and excellent electromagnetic conversion characteristics can be stably obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a method for manufacturing a magnetic alloy film according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a magnetic head according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 FeTa alloy 2 Zn 3 Backing plate 5 Substrate 6 Magnetic alloy film 7 Magnetic gap 8 Mn-Zn ferrite substrate 9 Bonding glass 40 Sputter target (FeTaZn) 41 Sputter target (FeTa)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G11B 5/187 G11B 5/187 F H01F 10/14 H01F 10/14 (72) Inventor Toshisaku Muraoka Kadoma, Osaka 1006 Kadoma, Ichidai-ji Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. BB33 BB48 FF05 GG14 HH01 JJ05 KK20 5E049 AA01 AA09 BA12 CC01 GC02

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A magnetic alloy film having a composition of FeTaZnN is formed by simultaneously discharging an FeTa alloy target and a Zn single target produced by melting and performing sputtering in an atmosphere in which N2 gas is introduced into Ar gas. A method for producing a magnetic alloy film, comprising forming a film. 2. A magnetic alloy film according to claim 1, wherein a composite target is used in which at least one piece of a FeTa alloy and a simple substance of Zn prepared by melting are dispersed and arranged on at least one piece of the same backing plate. Method. 3. An electrode provided with a FeTa alloy target produced by melting and Zn alone or the composite target according to claim 2 is simultaneously discharged, and a film is formed while rotating the substrate. 2. The method for producing a magnetic alloy film according to item 1. 4. A magnetic head using a magnetic alloy film formed by the method according to claim 1, 2 or 3 as a magnetic core.