Objective
High density magnetic recording evolves into digitized formats. An international standard has been defined, i.e. the Digital Video Cassette (DVC). The first DVC products have been introduced into the Japanese market in 1995. Market prospects predict 75% growth per year, resulting in 70 million DVC's sold in the year 2002. This offers large profit opportunities. At the moment, only two Japanese companies are in control of this technology.
The high performance tape needed in the DVC system is based on a Metal Evaporated magnetic thin film (ME tape). The state of the art advanced ME tape is a CoO multilayer structure on a PET substrate that is covered by a Diamond Like Carbon (DLC) wear resistant layer and a lubricant on top. The DLC coating is the cost determining factor because its deposition speed is two orders of magnitude lower than that of the magnetic coating, and it is difficult to deposit on a large area.
The objective of this project is to develop and characterize a prototype DVC that is suitable for the next generation video and (computer) data storage applications In this proposal, not electron beam evaporation is chosen for the deposition process, but DC magnetron sputtering. Advantages of this concept are: the possibility of thinner recording layers (better performance), less raw material consumption and high in line deposition speed of the wear resistant layer. The latter makes cost effectiveness of this concept possible. This research objectives are briefly summarized:
1. Obtain know how about handling and thermal load properties of new ultra thin DVC substrates (4.6 and 6.0 mm in thickness), suitable for a webcoating environment.
2. Develop a coating stack by DC magnetron sputtering. This results in three sub objectives:
The total coating stack must be thinner than 120 mn resulting in better recording performance.
An oblique magnetic anisotropy must be induced by the DC magnetron sputtering process.
The process must and can be three times as efficient in raw material consumption.
3. Develop a wear resistant layer using reactive DC magnetron sputtering (SiOx, AIOx). Its thickness will be around 10 nm and deposition (a.o. speed) should be compatible with the total process. 4. A suitable lubricant will be developed and deposited (typical thickness: one or a few monolayers) either in line with the inorganic coating stack (in vacuo) or off line.
The texture of the different layers in the coating stack determines the recording performance and is very much dependent on the sputter geometry. Therefore development is carried out on a semi industrial scale, i.e. web widths of 58 cm. Minimum tape length will be 70 meters (small size cassette).
The duration of the project is 3 years and must provide the consortium with all the information needed for a successful implementation of the process on a production scale, i.e. technology and investments. The partnership covers the complete range of skills necessary for developing a DVC, i.e. a company applying sputtered coatings on films (IST, main contractor), a company supplying and developing lubricants (AUSIMONT), a manufacturing company active on the video market (MPO), a company that is involved in the DVC hardware and that can monitor trends (PHILIPS) and a university with fundamental knowledge on, and an outstanding infrastructure for, research on magnetic recording (UT). The partnership is completely complementary in its tasks and every partner is a major player in its field of competence.
Also three sub contractors will be consulted for scientific and technical support on PET substrates (TDF), Diamond Like Carbon coatings (BEKAERT) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM, University of Antwerp RUCA, E MAT).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering tribology lubrication
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy electron microscopy
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- natural sciences mathematics pure mathematics geometry
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Coordinator
9870 Zulte
Belgium
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