Abstract
To investigate the effect of UV irradiation on depletion and replenishment of molecularly thin liquid lubricant films coated over magnetic disk surfaces, we performed pin-on-disk sliding test using non-UV-irradiated, UV-irradiated, and partially UV-irradiated 2-nm-thick AM3001 films, respectively. With UV irradiation, the depletion area decreased by 39% whereas the time constant for replenishment increased by 18%, indicating that UV irradiation drastically enhances the antiwear performance of the lubricant films accompanying with slight decline in the replenishment performance. For the lubricant films patterned by partial UV irradiation, the antiwear performance was further slightly improved as compared with the UV-irradiated films, and the replenishment performance was found to be dependent on the pattern shapes.
