Partially solid polyester lubricant coats hard drives.(POLYMERS/CERAMICS)

Advanced Materials & Processes, November, 2004

An inexpensive polyester lubricant that is said to act like a solid when cast as a very thin film onto computer hard drives is under development a the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Called SHP, for sterically hindered polyester, it acts like a solid when cast as a very thin film, and has very good adhesion properties.

A lubricant coating shields the hard drive disk from damage during contact with the head, which can fly back and forth across the disk dozens of times per second. As a magnetic recording device, the head itself relies on a magnetic field rather than physical contact to read or write to the disk. At rest, tiny arms called sliders drop down to the disk surface to protect the head. The lubricant needs to be solid enough to prevent the...

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