Numerical Simulation on Lubricant Recovery After Depletion

In magnetic recording, the hard disk rotates at a high speed, with the slider flying above it. To protect the disk and slider from corrosion damage, contact scratching, high friction and wear, a thin lubricant layer is coated on the disk surface. With the continuous increase in the hard disk drive (HDD) areal density, the spacing between the head and the media is rapidly approaching the sub-nanometer regime, which demands the thickness of lubricant to be molecularly-thin. At such a nanoscale head-disk interface, the short-range forces and the air shear force may cause significant lubricant migration [1, 2]. The lubricant may pile up, and/or be picked up by the slider [3], which in turn affects the flyability of the slider. Meanwhile, the short-range forces such as Van de Waals forces may cause lubricant instability issues [1].