Liquid-Mediated Adhesion at the Thin Film Magnetic Disk/Slider Interface

The adhesive force between magnetic-recording heads and thin film disks in a direction normal to the interface has been measured for a variety of loads, contact times, separation rates, and relative humidities with and without a layer of perfluoropolyether lubricant at the interface. At low humidities, the adhesive force due to the lubricant film alone is small for the lubricant thickness and disk surface roughness used. We find that the major component of the adhesive force between the slider and the disk in humid environments may be attributed to an adsorbed water film which can displace the lubricant (if the disk is lubricated) at sufficiently high loads, during tangential sliding, or after extended exposure to high concentrations of water vapor and create menisci around individual asperity contacts. The adhesive force was found to increase with contact duration on the unlubricated disk, but was essentially independent of contact duration on the lubricated disk. For both lubricated and unlubricated disks, the adhesive force increased with increasing relative humidity and loading rate, but was independent of applied normal load.