Laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass analysis of perfluoropolyether monolayer directly from hard disk medium surface.

Modern life is dependent on computer technology, and because the volume of digital data in the world is increasing rapidly, the importance of data storage devices is also increasing rapidly. Among them, demands for magnetic disk drive well-known as hard disk drives is quite huge and information recording density on the disk media is continuing to grow dramatically. For the research and development of the magnetic disk media, it is critical to investigate and characterize the lubricant layer formed on the disk media surface. However, it is difficult because the layer is only a monolayer which has only approximately 1 nm thickness in many cases. Although matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) measurements of monolayers have already been reported (Su, J.; Mrksich, M. Langmuir, 2003, 19, 4867-4870), lubricants used here are (co)polymers which have molecular weight distributions and are mixtures of various degrees of polymerization. This can reduce the sensitivity of MS measurement because the number (or density) of distinct single molecular species is lower than for homogeneous samples. In this report, direct measurement and characterization of lubricant monolayers using the LDI-TOF-MS instrument is performed to gain insight into detailed information like average molecular weight, polymer distribution, and two-dimensional mapping directly from magnetic disk monolayers. To our knowledge, this is the first time such information was acquired directly from hard disk media. The technique reported here might open up new possibilities also for investigations of various electronic devices other than magnetic hard disks.