Abstract
A novel perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricant called TA-30 has been developed recently. In this study, we have investigated the conformation of TA-30 on diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films, by attempting the direct observation of a lubricant film by AFM using a fluoride probe. We also investigated the fundamental properties of a TA-30 lubricant film, such as its spreading characteristics, and the film thickness dependency of surface energy. Considering these experimental results, it is estimated that the conformation of TA-30 is quite different from that of conventional Ztetraol2000, and it adsorbs parallelly on the DLC surface with double layers. In addition, it is suggested that TA-30 has a thinner film thickness than Ztetraol2000 on the DLC surface and the second-layer lubricant molecules of TA-30 play a very important role as mobile lubricant fractions, resulting in a very-low-friction and very-low-spacing head-disk interface.
