Investigating head-disk interface issues at near-contact using take-off pressure measurements

Summary form only given. It is widely recognized that as magnetic recording densities in hard disk drives approach hundreds of Gb/sq. in., the head-disk clearance is expected to be in the sub-10 nm range. This decrease in mechanical spacing represents a formidable challenge to assuring long-term mechanical reliability of the interface. Consequently, there are several efforts focused at developing improved components for flyability together with efforts at gaining an understanding of the physical processes that occur at small spacing. As a part of this effort, we have investigated a wide variety of head and disk components to assess the tribological aspects of the head-disk interface for applications in near-contact recording systems using a relatively simple test procedure. In this paper, we describe this procedure and the principal experimental results obtained in four specific areas: (a) the role of disk surface roughness and waviness; (b) the influence of disk lubricant thickness; (c) the effect of molecular weight of disk lubricant; and (d) slider attributes.