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Simulation of the Performance of Various PFPE Lubricants Under Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Conditions

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Abstract

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is proposed for the next generation of hard disk drives. In HAMR systems, a laser beam heats the disk magnetic layer to the Curie temperature. This may cause the thin film lubricant coating the disk to deplete due to evaporation and surface tension gradient. In this study, we perform simulations for the Z-tetraol family of lubricants with four hydroxyl end-groups, including Z-tetraol 1200 as a low molecular weight member of the family and Z-tetraol 2200 as a high molecular weight of the family, and also for ZTMD (2,200 Da) with eight hydroxyl groups as a multi-dentate lubricant, which is manufactured based on the Z-tetraol family. All studies are performed for four cases of lubricant thicknesses including 5, 7, 12, and 14A. These numbers are chosen in order to provide a fair comparison with a previous study for Z-dol. We also investigate the relative effects of evaporation with respect to the thermocapillary shear stress. It is found that after a 2 ns illumination of the laser, a trough and two side ridges across the down-track direction can be seen in the lubricant. The performances of the lubricants can be ranked mainly based on the trough depth and also evaporation such that better lubricants show less deformation and trough depth under equal conditions of thermal spot size and peak temperature. We also found that all of the lubricants deplete rapidly and their depletion speed decreases gradually.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Computer Mechanics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, Mechanical Engineering Department. The authors would also like to acknowledge the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA) Advanced Storage Technology Consortium (ASTC) project for providing funding for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Mohammad Soroush Ghahri Sarabi & David B. Bogy

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  1. Mohammad Soroush Ghahri Sarabi
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  2. David B. Bogy
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Correspondence to Mohammad Soroush Ghahri Sarabi.

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Ghahri Sarabi, M.S., Bogy, D.B. Simulation of the Performance of Various PFPE Lubricants Under Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Conditions. Tribol Lett 56, 293–304 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-014-0409-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-014-0409-x

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