Lubricant transfer mechanism and process between slider and disk

Abstract

The increasing of areal density of hard disk drives promotes the decreasing of the slider flying height. Lubricant transfer between slider and disk, caused by reducing slider flying height, plays an important role in affecting slider flying stability. In this study, the improved coarse-grained, bead-spring model is used to investigate the mechanism of lubricant transfer between slider and disk by molecular dynamics simulation. The effects of lubricant thickness on disk surface, lubricant type, and local temperature difference on the slider surface on lubricant transfer are studied. We observe that the amount of lubricant transferred to the slider sharply increases with the increase of lubricant thickness value on the disk surface. Increasing the number of hydroxyl groups in an individual lubricant molecule can greatly reduce the volume of the lubricant transferred to the slider. In addition, the local temperature difference on the slider surface can increase the volume of lubricant transferred to slider. What is more, the increasing of the number of hydroxyl groups contained in an individual molecule can considerably improve the influence of the local temperature difference on the lubricant transfer between slider and disk.