Processing of diamond/alumina composites for low wear applications
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Bharat Bhushanb) IBM Research Division, Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California 95120
Lutgard C. De Jonghe Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (Received 23 December 1991; accepted 8 July 1992)
A simple hot-pressing procedure for fabricating composites of diamond particulates in an alumina matrix at moderate applied pressures is described. Dense composites with up to 33 vol. % diamond particles are made by pressure-sintering at applied stress of 35 MPa in vacuum atmosphere. Preliminary wear tests of these composites on magnetic thin-film rigid disks show a low friction comparable to that of single crystalline diamond. Diamond/alumina composites can be an economical alternative to diamond or diamond coated materials for abrasion resistant applications.
I. INTRODUCTION Conventional magnetic recording involves relative motion between a magnetic medium against a readwrite magnetic head. Under steady operating conditions, a load-carrying air film is formed and little contact occurs between the recording components. However, during start/stop operations of the disk drive, physical contact does occur. Additionally, high-density and high resolution read-write recording requires development of systems with ultra-low flying gaps (
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