Tribological Characteristics of Liquid Lubricant on Magnetic Disks Treated by Far-UV Radiation

Abstract

In this paper, we have shown that a perfluoropolyether lubricant after far-UV irradiation treatment proposed by Saperstein and Lin (1990) was strongly bonded to disk surfaces without depletion from disks rotating at 6000 rpm in a 50°C temperature environment. Nonbonded lubricant (mobile lubricant) on disk surfaces or on the top of the UV-fixed lubricant was easily depleted from rotating disks. Depletion data of the mobile lubricant agreed well with predictions of an inter-slip model. It has been demonstrated experimentally that the mobile lubricant on disk surfaces was simply displaced from the contact or the sliding regions. After a long period of head contact, the lubricant was built up at the head/disk interface due to migration of the mobile lubricant around the contact regions. By contrast, no such build-up was observed for disks with the UV-fixed lubricant. Consequently, long-term stiction was observed for disks with only mobile lubricant, while no stiction was observed for disks with the UV-fixed lubricant. The UV-treated disks also adsorbed less water at high relative humidities compared with the nontreated disks.