Nanorheometry of Molecularly Thin Liquid Lubricant Films Coated on Magnetic Disks

Molecularly thin lubricant films are used for the lubrication of head disk interfaces in hard disk drives. The film thickness is reduced to 1-2 nm to minimize the magnetic spacing, and optimal, precise design is required to obtain sufficient lubrication. However, until now, there was no generally applicable method for investigating such thin films. Therefore, we developed a highly sensitive shear force measuring method and have applied it to the viscoelastic measurement of lubricant films coated on magnetic disk surfaces. In this paper, we review the method and summarize the useful findings we have demonstrated so far.