Lubrication and wear problems of perpendicular recording thin film flexible media

The present paper reports experimental results obtained using neutral or polar terminated PERFLUORO-POLYETHER fluid lubricants (FOMBLIN^(R)), applied by dip coating technique starting from dilute 1,1,2-tri-chlorotrifluoroethane (Delifrene)solutions. For this purpose Co-Cr floppy disks were RF sputtered in Olivetti laboratories on PET and polyimide substrates, and cut in 5.25" standard format. The lubricant layer was studied in terms of both the mechanical and the magnetic head/disk interactions. The lubricant class under investigation made it possible to achieve promising results with regard to wear life and friction reduction, with a sufficiently thin lubricant layer.