Direct access storage device with vapor phase lubricant system and a magnetic disk having a protective layer and immobile physically bonded lubricant layer

Abstract

A thin film magnetic recording disk that has a layer of lubricant bonded thereto is enclosed within a vapor phase lubricant system that operates to continuously apply lubricant vapors to the disk's bonded lubricant layer by operation of Langmuir kinetics. Lubricant vapors are selectively adsorbed on the disk, including regions of the disk where the bonded lubricant is either too thin or is entirely absent, thus minimizing failures that might be caused by such imperfections in the bonded lubricant layer. A reactive perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricant containing chemically active functional groups is substantially bonded onto the recording surface of the disk, for example by the application of heat. The mobile residue of this bonded lubricant layer may be left on the disk, to thereafter function as a non-bonded, mobile, lubricant layer covering the surface of the bonded lubricant layer. Alternately, the lubricant residue may be substantially removed by use of a solvent or other means, and a nonreactive lubricant, such as a nonreactive PFPE, may thereafter be topically applied onto the surface of the bonded lubricant layer, to function as a non-bonded, mobile, lubricant layer. A lubricant reservoir within the vapor phase lubricant system provides a supply of a volatile organic lubricant, such as stearic acid or reactive or a nonreactive PFPE. Lubricant vapors from this reservoir operate so as to continuously repair voids or thin areas in the disk's simplex layer of substantially bonded lubricant, or in the disk's duplex layer of bonded and mobile lubricant. Either one, two or three lubricants could be used in this tribological system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.