Sliding-pin shapes and lubricant thickness change on a thin-film magnetic disk

In developing hard disk drives, it is necessary to keep lubricant as thick as possible during operations. For this purpose, we studied lubricant loss under different-shape contact-sliders on thin-film magnetic disks by using transparent-pin sliding tests with a built-in ellipsometer. We compared sliding pins with spherical, flat circle, flat square, and double-flat-rail surfaces. nd that lubricant loss was smaller under flat pins than under the spherical pin, and the smallest under the double-flat-rail pin among flat sliders. The results show that the horizontal and vertical shapes of sliders must carefully be selected for contact recording systems.