Abstract
Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM) have been applied to study the diffusion barriers at the interface between the Sendust based film and the ferrite core in the MIG heads. A transition zone containing Al 2 O 3 was observed by XTEM at the interface of ferrite / Sendust after annealing at 550°C for 1 h. W and Mo films were found to be effective diffusion barriers, whereas Cr and Au films were found to be rather ineffective. The reduction of ripple less than 1.5 dB in the head with W barrier layer was attributed to the decrease of the pseudo-gap length due to the diffusion barrier effect. This playback performance correlates well with the AES and XTEM results. © 1994.