Tribological investigations on micromachined silicon sliders

The continuous decrease in flying height and subsequent machining challenges spurred an interest in alternative slider materials, particularly single phase ones. Furthermore, due to a desire of the recording head industry to more closely follow semiconductor fabrication technologies, silicon has been taken into consideration as an interesting alternative to alumina-titanium carbide (Altic), used presently. In case silicon is to be introduced, extensive tribological investigations are required. This paper attempts to shed some light on some basic tribological properties of silicon sliders used on DLC coated metal disks by doing a pin-on-disk test at a low rotational velocity.