Abstract
Rare earth-transition metal amorphous films are promising for use in erasable optical memory media. A number of studies have been made of corrosion or reliability of the media, and for practical use, more systematic tests on corrosion and reliability are essential. We have studied dependences of pitting corrosion on aging humidity and temperature. Specimens were noncoated, SiO-coated, or SiO2-coated TbFe and TbCoFeTi films deposited onto glass substrates by RF sputtering and were aged at a variety of humidity and temperature conditions. The degree of corrosion was quantified by transmittance changes of the specimens. Relative humidity was an accelerating factor of the corrosion for all the specimens, but temperature was only for the coated specimens. High temperature and humidity tests are good accelerative tests of the corrosion for the coated specimens but not for the noncoated specimens.
