Motion pictures on in-situ air bearing dynamics

Knowledge of the detailed motion of an air bearing slider as it "flys" over the surface of a recording disk is essential for understanding and improving the slider-disk interface. The minute spacing between these surfaces (0.2 µM) permits the use of electrical capacitance for obtaining absolute flying height, pitch and roll of the slider relative to the disk surface. Employing special multi-sensor air bearing sliders in an assembled disk file, along with high bandwidth electronics and microsecond data acquisition, its motion can be captured and reconstructed. The results are visualized in a motion picture format, showing the behavior of the slider in slow motion during an entire full data band access stroke. No large excursions of the slider\´s motion are found even when it experiences a large radial acceleration during accessing.