Improvement of Thermal Stability of the Lubricant Film for the Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Media

This paper described a specially synthesized novel polymer lubricant with high thermal stability for heat assisted magnetic recording media. The contact angle and touchdown/takeoff behaviors of the lubricant were investigated by comparing to commercial available lubricants. A thermal stability of the polymer lubricant at 449°C has been achieved. The results suggest that the takeoff/touchdown behavior of a slider over a lubricated hard disk depends on the molecular interactions of the lubricant molecules. Thermal stabilities of all the tested lubricants were found increasing with the heating rate and follow the same trend. A higher thermal stability of the lubricant film under flash heating and cooling conditions is predicted. A heat-sink layer was experimentally confirmed as effective approach to reduce the peak temperature duration onto the lubricant or carbon overcoat.