DocumentCode :
1302736
Title :
Chemical contamination at the head-disk interface in a disk drive
Author :
Fowler, David E. ; Geiss, Roy H.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Adv. Technol., Maxtor Corp., Milpitas, CA, USA
Volume :
36
Issue :
1
fYear :
2000
Firstpage :
133
Lastpage :
139
Abstract :
Contamination of the head-disk interface (HDI) is known to degrade the performance of the disk drive. Through decades of ongoing improvements the level of airborne chemical contamination, although measurable, is extremely low in today\´s disk drives. Yet, exposure to aggressive environments can still produce droplets of liquid contamination at the HDI. This can cause increased startup friction or "stiction" at the interface of a disk drive. Previously reported chemical-induced stiction is reviewed. The outgassing within a disk drive is made up of a complex mixture of organic chemicals, but the liquid found at the HDI interface in experimental, but complete, drives is found to be principally composed of simple alkanes. The growth and movement of these alkane droplets at the HDI in a fully functioning disk drive was observed with a visualization setup, which can continuously monitor the HDI between a slider and a carbon-coated, lubricated glass disk.
Keywords :
digital magnetic recording; disc drives; drops; impurities; magnetic disc storage; stiction; surface contamination; C; C-coated lubricated glass disk; aggressive environments; airborne contamination; alkanes droplets; chemical contamination; chemical-induced stiction; continuous monitoring; disk drive performance; head-disk interface; liquid contamination; organic chemicals; outgassing; slider; startup friction; visualization setup; Chemical industry; Contamination; Corrosion; Disk drives; Friction; Liquids; Lubricants; Pollution measurement; Temperature; Transistors;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
0018-9464
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/20.824438
Filename :
824438
Link To Document :
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