Understanding the performance of polymeric perfluoro-lubricants under femtosecond laser irradiation is of great fundamental importance in enhancing the stability and durability of micro- and nano-devices. In this paper, molecular dynamics simulations of perfluoropolyether are carried out to investigate the evolution and depletion of molecularly thin lubricants when subjected to laser heating. Ultrathin perfluoropolyether lubricant films are modeled by the coarse-grained bead-spring model and are coated on an inert substrate. Periodical surface morphology and layered film structure are formed in the equilibrium lubricant system due to the polar interaction of functional beads. It is found that the lubricant undergoes severe depletion with an increase in laser heating duration, resulting in aggravated lubricant evaporation and raised ridges. A temperature gradient is formed in the radial direction due to the heat transfer between the heated beads and the surrounding lubricants. During the cooling process, the strong functional interaction between end-beads and the substrate layer hinders the recovery and redistribution of depleted lubricant beads, resulting in an undersaturated film. The mechanism of lubricant depletion under laser heating is further demonstrated by analyzing the temperature dependence of surface tension. The detailed analyses of lubricant depletion provided in the present work are expected to be guidelines to design novel perfluoropolyether lubricants.

The physics of the heat transfer process from the slider of a hard disk drive to its disk is discussed. A generalized heat transfer model, which incorporates various molecular dynamics models, is proposed to solve the heat transfer problem in thin film bearings at head-disk interface. The proposed model considers the impact of molecular collisions between film molecules and solid surfaces, which plays an important role in the heat transfer of thin film bearings and is expected to improve the accuracy of predicting the thermal protrusion caused by the heating of the slider at the head-disk interface of hard disk drives.

To sustain an ultra-low and stable flying height (FH) is crucial for achieving high areal densities in magnetic recording. Recently, a new method called thermal flying height control (TFC) has been introduced to the latest generations of disk drives for precise control of slider-disk spacing. It is noted that the TFC technique is able to eliminate almost all static FH loss, but is unable to circumvent dynamic FH loss such as flying height modulation (FHM) due to disk waviness. It is therefore advantageous to have both high thermal actuation efficiency and low FHM due to disk waviness characteristics in a TFC slider design. This paper investigates the effects of air bearings on the thermal actuation efficiency and the capability in following disk waviness of the TFC sliders. Air bearing surface (ABS) design strategies for TFC slider are proposed and investigated with simulations. The results show that both excellent thermal actuation efficiency and strong capability in following disk waviness can be achieved through proper arrangements of air bearing pressure distribution on the ABS of TFC sliders.

The physics of the heat conduction and viscous dissipation in rarefied gases is analyzed and discussed. A heat transfer model valid for arbitrary Knudsen numbers, defined as the ratio of the molecular mean free path to the characteristic length of channels, is derived by treating the heat transfer behavior in the slip and transition regimes as an intermediate function of continuum heat transfer model and free molecular heat transfer model. Comparison studies reveal that this model not only shows good agreement with the numerical results based on the direct simulation Monte Carlo method, but also has some unique features that can overcome the deficiencies existing in the previous models. Therefore, this model is capable to study the heat transport phenomena in very dilute gas Couette flows through micro/nanochannels more accurately.