ABSTRACT
When thinking of a disk drive, one picture that comes to mind is that of digital data bits stored on a spinning disk housed inside a device such as a computer, a digital video recorder, or a music player. Lubricants play a vital role in fulfilling these requirements for the disk drive industry. This chapter focuses on lubricants for the magnetic recording disk and the spindle bearing motor. Dielectric spectroscopy is utilized to probe the dipole relaxation of disk lubricant end groups. The soft magnetic layers on the magnetic recording disk substrate are typically overcoated with a 2–3 nm thick carbonaceous film. Perfluoropolyethers are attractive as magnetic recording disk lubricants because of their low surface energy, low vapor pressure, wide liquid range, transparency, and lack of odor. The lubricant viscosity also increases as the lubricant film thickness decreases, which helps to prevent the lubricant from flowing completely off the magnetic recording disks in the air shear.
