Laser surface cleaning and potential applications in disk drive industry

Laser cleaning has emerged as an effective cleaning technique for removing contaminants from solid surfaces. Dry laser cleaning and steam laser cleani ng have been developed recently, relying on pulsed laser heating of the sur face without and with the presence of a thin liquid coating. A cleaning mod el was established for removal of particles from solid surfaces by taking V an der Waals force, capillary force and cleaning force into account. The mo del can not only explain the influence of laser fluence on cleaning efficie ncy, but also predict the cleaning thresholds. Laser-induced removal of fil m-type contaminants from solid surfaces has been studied. Laser cleaning me chanisms and its applications in disk drive industry will be discussed in t his article. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.