Asahi Glass Succeeds Develops Modified PFPE for Hard Disk Lubricants

Asahi Glass has developed a modified perfluoropolyether (PFPE) for hard disk lubricant. The new product exhibits low viscosity, low water absorption and low friction properties while maintaining the other excellent properties of modified PFPE such as high adhesiveness, heat stability and resistance to chemicals and solvent because it is produced by applying the proprietary direct fluorination technology of Asahi Glass (i.e. PERFECT Method).

In the hard disk drives (HDD), slider-head writes on and reads data from a disk. As the recording density is increased each year, the head-disk clearance is getting narrower which makes the chance of head touching down and taking off more frequently. Under these conditions, the performance of lubricant plays a key role. In order for the slider-head to take off again smoothly from the disk, it is necessary that the lubricant oil applied on the surface of disk exhibits both low viscosity and friction properties.

However, the conventional modified PFPE have some limitation to improve such properties due to their limited chemical structures and the number of functional groups. With the new product developed successfully by the Company, we were able to improve both of the properties by applying the PERFECT Method, which is a proprietary fluorination technology of Asahi Glass, while keeping the other excellent properties of modified PFPE such as high adhesiveness, heat stability, and resistance to chemicals and solvent. Asahi Glass expects to meet the future trend of HDDs, too.