The award funds a non-contacting profilometer to be used in on-going research on the wear behavior of solid lubricant films on oxide coated disks used for magnetic information storage. These lubricant films prevent head "crashes" and consequent information loss during start-up or power loss. Since they cannot be replenished during the life of the hard disk their wear behavior is critical to the over-all performance of the disk; and since they are extremely thin and easily deformed their wear behavior is most readily studied using a high-resolution, non-contacting optical profilometer such as the instrument funded under this grant.
