Study of Friction and Adhesion by Atomic Force Microscope and Their Relationship to Surface Energy for the Lubricated Disk

The friction and adhesion forces of various lubricated disks were investigated at different temperatures using an atomic force microscope (AFM). A strong correlation was found between friction/adhesion forces and strain gauge/acoustic emission signals in component level test for the same type of media samples. Slider's flying instability/oscillation was observed for hard drive assembled with high friction/adhesion media as selected from AFM measurement at component level. For each case, friction and adhesion force was compared with the measured total surface energy values by contact angle experiments and found a logarithmic relationship between surface energy and friction/adhesion force.