Experimental Study of Lubricant Depletion in Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording over the Lifetime of the Drive

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a promising choice to overcome the superparamagnetic limit in magnetic recording and further increase the areal recoding density of hard disk drive. However, it is expected that HAMR causes lubricant depletion problem on disk surface under the high temperature in the heating assisted writing process. Experimental studies of the lubricant depletion under HAMR conditions are still very limited so far. Lubricant depletion over the lifetime of the drive still remains unaddressed. In this study, a self-developed HAMR tester is introduced. The methods to control the repeatability of laser heating temperature, to determine laser heating temperature, and to adjust laser heating temperature are explained. Laser heating time in the test is correlated with that in the drive. Lubricant depletion is determined quantitatively and the relationship between lubricant depletion depth and laser heating time is established. Then, lubricant depletion depth over the lifetime of the drive is predicated. It is found that almost all lubricant on the disk surface will be depleted over the lifetime of the drive.     

A Theoretical Study of Vapor Lubrication for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a promising technique to overcome the superparamagnetic limit to further increase the areal recording density of hard disk drives. However, HAMR brings about serious problems to the slider-disk interface, such as lubricant depletion on disk surface caused by laser heating. It is proposed to overcome the lubricant depletion problem by using vapor lubrication. The lubricant film formation process on disk surface in vapor lubrication is studied theoretically based on fundamental adsorption and desorption theories. The controlling parameters of lubricant film thickness and film formation time are identified. It is found that the lubricant film thickness is controlled mainly by lubricant vapor pressure and molecular weight. The film formation time can be shortened by using low molecular weight lubricant and high temperature lubricant vapor.     

Laser-Heating-Induced Damage to Ultrathin Carbon Overcoat in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a technique for overcoming the superparamagnetic limit and enabling large increases in the storage density of hard disk drives. The performance of the disk carbon overcoat under the high temperature in the heating-assisted writing process is a concern. Laser heating in HAMR is quite different from conventional slow heating. Laser heating temperature and total laser heating duration over the lifetime of the drive are two dominant factors in the experimental study of laser-heating-induced damage to the carbon overcoat, which must be carefully controlled. In this study, a rough estimation of the total laser heating time for a given point on the media over the 5-year lifetime of the drive is given. It is expected to be only 0.1 ms. The methods of controlling laser heating temperature and total laser heating time in experimental studies are explained in detail. Laser-heating-induced damage to the a-C:Nx and a-C:Hx overcoats on HAMR media are studied. Surface topographical changes caused by the laser heating are evaluated with atomic force microscopy and structure changes by visible Raman spectroscopy. It is found that laser heating induces surface topographical and structure changes, especially for the a-C:Nx overcoat.     

Effect of Rheology and Slip on Lubricant Deformation and Disk-to-Head Transfer During Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR)

The high-temperature laser heating during heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) causes the media lubricant to deform and transfer to the head via evaporation/condensation. The ability of the lubricant to withstand this writing process and sufficiently recover post-writing is critical for robust read/write performance. Moreover, the media-to-head lubricant transfer causes a continuous deposition of contaminants originating from the media at the head near field transducer, challenging the reliability of HAMR drives. Most previous studies on the effects of laser exposure on lubricant depletion have assumed the lubricant to be a viscous fluid and have modeled its behavior using traditional lubrication theory. However, Perfluoropolyether lubricants are viscoelastic fluids and are expected to exhibit a combination of viscous and elastic behavior at the timescale of HAMR. In this paper, we introduce a modification to the traditional Reynolds lubrication equation using the linear Maxwell constitutive equation and a slip boundary condition. We study the deformation and recovery of the lubricant due to laser heating under the influence of thermocapillary stress and disjoining pressure. Subsequently, we use this modified lubrication equation to develop a model that predicts the media-to-head lubricant transfer during HAMR. This model simultaneously determines the deformation and evaporation of the viscoelastic lubricant film on the disk, the diffusion of the vapor phase lubricant in the air bearing, and the evolution of the condensed lubricant film on the head. We investigate the effect of viscoelasticity, lubricant type (Zdol vs Ztetraol), molecular weight, slip, and disjoining pressure on the lubricant transfer process.     

Simulation of Lubricant Recovery After Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording Writing

The lubricant in a heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) hard disk drive must be able to withstand the writing process in which the disk is locally heated a few hundred degrees Celsius within a few nanoseconds and be able to sufficiently recover the lubricant depletion and accumulation zones so as to allow for stable flying heights and reliable read/write performance. In a previous publication, we simulated the distortion of thin Zdol films due to a thermal spot during HAMR writing and predicted several Angstroms of depletion. In this paper, we continue these simulations into recovery. Our simulation results indicate that lubricant deformation caused by small thermal spots of 20-nm full-width half-maximum (FWHM) recover on the order of 100–1,000 times faster than larger 1-μm FWHM spots. However, the lubricant is unable to recover from sufficiently high writing temperatures. An optimal thickness at which HAMR writing deformation recovers fastest is apparent for sub-100-nm FWHM thermal spots. Our simulations show that simple scaling of experimental observations using optical laser spots of diameters close to 1 μm to predict lubricant phenomena induced by thermal spots close to 20-nm FWHM may not be valid. Researchers should be aware of the possibility of different lubricant behavior at small scales when designing and developing the HAMR head-disk interface.     

Study on Lubricant Depletion Induced by Laser Heating in Thermally Assisted Magnetic Recording Systems: Effect of Lubricant Thickness and Bonding Ratio

In this study, we have carried out fundamental research on lubricant depletion due to laser heating in thermally assisted magnetic recording. In particular, we investigated the effects of lubricant film thickness and lubricant bonding ratio on lubricant depletion. Conventional lubricants Zdol2000 and Ztetraol2000 were used. The lubricant depletion characteristics due to laser heating were found to depend largely on the lubricant film thickness and material. That is, for films thicker than one monolayer, the lubricant depletion depth increased with the laser-irradiation duration, whereas the thickness of the lubricant after laser irradiation on the diamond-like carbon (DLC) films tended to remain at a constant film thickness of one monolayer. The lubricant depletion width gradually increased as the laser irradiation duration increased. The increasing trends for the lubricant depletion width were quantitatively very similar and almost independent of the initial lubricant film thickness. However, for lubricant films with thicknesses less than one monolayer, the lubricant depletion depth was very small. The lubricant depletion width increased remarkably to several hundred micrometers as the laser irradiation duration increased. The lubricant depletion depth and width were much smaller for Ztetraol2000 than Zdol2000. In addition, the lubricant-bonding ratio was found to greatly affect the lubricant depletion characteristics due to laser heating. In other words, the lubricant depletion depth and width decreased as the bonding ratio increased. The lubricant depletion mechanism involves the evaporation of mobile lubricant molecules when the maximum attained temperature is less than 100 °C. Another suggested lubricant depletion mechanism involves the thermocapillary stress effect, which is induced by the disk surface temperature gradient resulting from the non-uniformity of the laser spot intensity distribution.     

Effect of Viscoelasticity on Lubricant Behavior Under Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording Conditions

In Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, the lubricant layer coating on the disk is exposed to severe thermal conditions, leading to evaporation, depletion, and chemical degradation. In general, those studying the effects of laser exposure on lubricant depletion and recovery have assumed the lubricant to be a viscous fluid and have modeled its behavior using lubrication theory. However, PFPE lubricant depletion and recovery behavior at the timescale of HAMR conditions (microsecond to millisecond) is known to be that of a viscoelastic fluid. In this paper, we introduce a modification to the traditional lubrication equation that accommodates viscoelastic effects. The results suggest that this method is numerically unstable for small laser spot sizes, close to the target of HAMR. Accordingly, we developed a novel approach to model the viscoelastic depletion and recovery behavior of PFPE ultra-thin films using a Finite Element Analysis. We show that this new method is able to model the entire range of material viscoelasticity, from purely viscous to purely elastic extremes. The results show that the viscoelastic effects become remarkably pronounced with a decrease in laser spot size. For the micron-size laser spots, close to typical experimental conditions, the lubricant behaves like a viscous fluid. For the laser spot size of 20 nm, close to the target of HAMR, it behaves like an elastic material. In exposing the consequences of this viscoelastic behavior, this study predicts that lubricant flow due to thermo-capillary effects will not be a significant issue in the development of the HAMR technology. Rather, future efforts should concentrate on the thermal degradation and evaporation effects upon HAMR lubricants.     

Molecular dynamics studies of lubricant depletion under moving laser heating: Effects of laser power and film thickness

Molecular dynamics simulation is employed to study the depletion behaviors of perfluoro-lubricants under scanning laser heating for heat-assisted magnetic recording hard disk drives. A partial lubricant near the substrate is irradiated by the laser beam to mimic nano-scale heat transfer from disk to lubricant. The lubricant surface morphology and thickness profiles are examined to reveal the dynamic depletion behaviors. The localized temperature evolution is also evaluated to illustrate the direction-dependent ridge formation around the depletion zone. In addition, the effects of laser power and film thickness on lubricant depletion are explored. Although evaporation is enhanced significantly at high laser powers or for lubricant with thickness around one monolayer, thermodiffusion is the primary mode of lubricant depletion under scanning laser heating.     

Simulation of the Performance of Various PFPE Lubricants Under Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Conditions

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is proposed for the next generation of hard disk drives. In HAMR systems, a laser beam heats the disk magnetic layer to the Curie temperature. This may cause the thin film lubricant coating the disk to deplete due to evaporation and surface tension gradient. In this study, we perform simulations for the Z-tetraol family of lubricants with four hydroxyl end-groups, including Z-tetraol 1200 as a low molecular weight member of the family and Z-tetraol 2200 as a high molecular weight of the family, and also for ZTMD (2,200 Da) with eight hydroxyl groups as a multi-dentate lubricant, which is manufactured based on the Z-tetraol family. All studies are performed for four cases of lubricant thicknesses including 5, 7, 12, and 14A. These numbers are chosen in order to provide a fair comparison with a previous study for Z-dol. We also investigate the relative effects of evaporation with respect to the thermocapillary shear stress. It is found that after a 2 ns illumination of the laser, a trough and two side ridges across the down-track direction can be seen in the lubricant. The performances of the lubricants can be ranked mainly based on the trough depth and also evaporation such that better lubricants show less deformation and trough depth under equal conditions of thermal spot size and peak temperature. We also found that all of the lubricants deplete rapidly and their depletion speed decreases gradually.     

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Thermal-Induced Local Heating and Depletion of Ultrathin Perfluoropolyether Lubricant Under Moving Laser Heating

Molecular dynamics simulations of nanostructured perfluoropolyether lubricant are performed to investigate localized heating and lubricant depletion instability under moving laser heating. The evolution of the lubricant surface morphology indicates that a valley-like depletion track is formed along the path of the laser beam, resulting in aggravated depletion with heating time. The depletion profiles at various laser durations are characterized by the film thickness, in which a raised ridge is formed around the depletion zone signifying that the thermocapillary stress has a non-negligible effect on lubricant depletion. The recovery process is studied as well by further equilibrating the entire system with the laser beam turned off. During the cooling stage, the lubricant undergoes a slow recovery when compared with the laser-induced depletion. In addition to the attractive lubricant-to-disk interaction, the strong polar coupling between end beads prevents the recovery of lubricant beads back to the depleted surface. Moreover, the nonuniform surface tension and the nonequilibrium thermocapillary stress are expected to account for the mechanisms of lubricant depletion under moving laser heating.     

A Model for Laser Induced Lubricant Depletion in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

The lubricant evaporation caused by the rapid laser heating is always a big concern in heat-assisted magnetic recording. In this article, we develop an empirical equation based on the existing measurement data to describe the relation between the evaporation coefficient of lubricant and temperature on the disk surface. The evaporation coefficient of lubricant is found to decrease from ~1.0 to ~0.003 for the temperature range from 406 to 512 K and follow the trend given by the Arrhenius formula. By incorporating this formula into a previously established evaporation model, we can get a new model, which enables us to predict the lubricant evaporation and depletion caused by the rapid laser heating more accurately than ever.     

Adsorbed Water Film and Heat Conduction from Disk to Slider in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

In heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), a tiny area of magnetic recording media has to be heated up to a high temperature with laser to lower the coercivity temporarily for information to be written on the area. In a humid environment, some of the water vapor molecules adsorb on the disk surface to form a water film. In HAMR writing, the adsorbed water film on the disk surface will desorb instantly from the high-temperature laser heating area to become high-temperature high-pressure water vapor. The water vapor molecules will transfer extra heat from the high-temperature laser heating area on the disk surface to the slider, which makes the temperature of the slider surface higher in a humid environment than that in dry air. The heat transfer increases dramatically with relative humidity and with the decrease in slider–disk spacing.     

A Model for Lubricant Transfer from Media to Head During Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) Writing

One of the challenges in heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is the creation of write-induced head contamination at the near-field transducer. A possible mechanism for the formation of this contamination is the transfer of lubricant from the disk to the slider (lubricant pickup) due to temperature-driven evaporation/condensation and/or mechanical interactions. Here we develop a continuum model that predicts the head-to-disk lubricant transfer during HAMR writing. The model simultaneously determines the thermocapillary shear stress-driven deformation and evaporation of the lubricant film on the disk, the convection and diffusion of the vapor phase lubricant in the air bearing and the evolution of the condensed lubricant film on the slider. The model also considers molecular interactions between disk–lubricant, slider–lubricant and lubricant–lubricant in terms of disjoining pressure. We investigate the effect of media temperature, head temperature and initial lubricant thickness on the lubricant transfer process. We find that the transfer mechanism is initially largely thermally driven. The rate of slider lubricant accumulation can be significantly reduced by decreasing the media temperature. However, as the amount of lubricant accumulation increases with time, a change in the transfer mechanism occurs from thermally driven to molecular interactions driven. A similar change in transfer mechanism is predicted as the head–disk spacing is reduced. There exists a critical value of head lubricant thickness and a critical head–disk spacing at which dewetting of the disk lubricant begins, leading to enhanced pickup.     

Material Transfer Inside Head Disk Interface for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) promises to deliver higher storage areal density than the current perpendicular magnetic recording products. Laser heating is implemented in HAMR to achieve magnetic writing of the very high coercivity media. However, the high temperature environment creates several reliability challenges for the head disk interface (HDI). In this paper, material transfer within the HDI under HAMR recording conditions is studied. The mechanisms of material transfer are explored via experiments and modeling. This study revealed that temperature difference and mechanical interaction between the head and media are the main mechanisms for material transfer inside the HDI. Possible methods to remove the material are also discussed in this paper.     

Effect of Functional End-Groups on Lubricant Reflow in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR)

In the developing heat-assisted magnetic recording technology, a laser heats up the magnetic media to the Curie temperature of a few hundred degrees celsius for a few nanoseconds. Accordingly, the thin-film lubricant coating on the disk experiences thermo-capillary and evaporation effects followed by its depletion. In order to maintain a reliable head–disk interface, the lubricant needs to return to the initial uniform profile, in a process known as lubricant reflow. We performed numerical simulations of the lubricant reflow and compared the recovery times for widely used lubricants in hard disk industry including Z-dol, Z-tetraol, and ZTMD lubricants with similar molecular weights. We modeled the lubricant reflow on the disk for a wide range of film thicknesses and laser spot sizes, based on a classical lubrication theory and material properties reported by experiments. The results show that the recovery times for Z-tetraol 2200 and ZTMD are significantly greater than that for Z-dol 2000, while the recovery time for ZTMD is close to that for Z-tetraol, despite its higher viscosity value. It is also shown that all lubricants have an optimum film thickness for recovery time, and this optimum point largely depends on the dewetting behavior of the lubricant.     

Kinetics of laser induced desorption and decomposition of Fomblin Zdol on carbon overcoats

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) on magnetic hard disks is being explored as a means of increasing the areal density of stored data beyond the limits of current technologies. HAMR will subject the magnetic media, the overcoat, and the lubricant on its surface to temperatures in the range 400–650 °C for periods of a few nanoseconds per pass of the read-write head. During such rapid heating events the lubricant is prone to decomposition and desorption from the surface, either of which lead to degradation of the lubricant film, jeopardizing the integrity of the stored data. Rapid laser annealing is known to bias the reactions of small molecules adsorbed on surfaces to favor desorption over decomposition. Analysis of the desorption and decomposition kinetics of perfluoropolyalkylether lubricants such as Fomblin Zdol shows that rapid heating to high temperatures favors desorption over decomposition for molecules with molecular weights of less than 3000. For higher molecular weight Fomblins decomposition is favored at the temperatures to be used for HAMR.     

Temperature field computation for a rotating cylindrical workpiece under laser quenching

Laser quenching is usually performed on a localized area of workpiece surfaces through a certain thermal cycle. As a result, the treated area possesses improved mechanical properties. The quality of the treatment results depends on the selection of laser process parameters, which relies on the knowledge of the temperature field caused by laser heating. This paper reports a model for the evaluation of the laser-induced thermal field. This model assumes a laser beam of uniform intensity and considers the effect of the base temperature on the total temperature. Surface temperatures were computed and compared for different scanning velocities and laser spot sizes. The analyses indicate that the temperature in later-heated areas is much higher than that in earlier-heated areas.     

Lubricant Flow and Evaporation Model for Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording Including Functional End-Group Effects and Thin Film Viscosity

The lubricant covering a hard disk in a heat-assisted magnetic recording drive must be able to withstand the writing process in which the disk is locally heated several hundred degrees Celsius within a few nanoseconds to reduce the coercivity of the media and allow writing of data. As a first step in modeling a robust lubricant, we have developed a simulation tool based on continuum theory that incorporates previously proposed variations of viscosity and an additional component of disjoining pressure due to functional end-groups with film thickness. Here we apply this simulation tool to a conventional perfluoropolyether lubricant, Zdol 2000, for which there exists experimental data. The simulation tool can be used equally well for other lubricants once their properties become known. Simulations at small length and time scales that are unobservable with current experimental capabilities are performed. We investigate the effect of the total disjoining pressure and thin film viscosity on evaporation and lubricant flow for different initial thickness. For films thicker than 1 nm, the inclusion of polar disjoining pressure suppresses the lubricant thickness change due to evaporation and thermocapillary shear stress compared with cases without this component. Thin film viscosity is an important property to consider for thinner lubricants. We also consider how lubricant depletion depends on laser spot size and thermal spot maximum temperature. The smaller spot profiles exhibit side ridges due to thermocapillary shear stress while the larger spot profiles show no side ridges, only a trough due to evaporation. The lubricant depletion zone width and depth increase with increasing thermal spot maximum temperature.     

Replenishment Speed of Depleted Scar in Submonolayer Lubricant

The evaluation of submonolayer lubricant mobility is becoming important in the field of nanotribology, in particular, in hard disk drives for realizing the near-contact or surfing–recording. This paper experimentally and theoretically investigates the replenishment speed of a depleted scar in a submonolayer lubricant caused by the head–disk contact. The theoretical analysis is based on continuum mechanics. The replenishment process of a submonolayer lubricant height profiles in a depleted scar caused by the head touchdown operation was experimentally measured for the Z-tetraol lubricant with a 0.24 nm mobile lubricant thickness and compared with the numerical simulation. It was found that the analytical replenishment process can fairly agree with the experimental one if the ratio of Hamaker constant to effective lubricant viscosity is properly determined. By using the validated basic equation, a simple but useful generalized formula is proposed to evaluate the replenishment speed in relation to the depleted scar width of the mobile lubricant, the lubricant thickness, and the ratio of Hamaker constant to effective lubricant viscosity.     

Functional Collapse of Designed Surface Texture for Stiction Prevention in Storage Disk Drives

Laser texture is widely used to prevent stiction in the head disk interface. The stiction protection depends on the effective height of the laser texture. The balance between the meniscus and mechanical deformation forces is described when lubricant migrates into the head disk interface. When the elastic deformation forces cannot balance the meniscus force, the laser texture bumps collapse and the protection against stiction is lost. A critical bump height is defined. Bump collapse is experimentally demonstrated by monitoring the capacitance between head and disk when lubricant migrates from the trailing edge of a slider into the head disk interface. An interface with high bumps shows a small capacitance increase since the mechanical deformation forces can balance the meniscus forces with only small bump compression. Consistent with a calculated capacitance increase under bump collapse, an interface with low bumps shows a large capacitance increase.