Mapping of slider-disk interaction

Summary form only given. In hard disk drives, the flying height of slider is reduced continuously to increase recording density. Low flying height results in an increased possibility of slider-disk interactions which cause serious reliability and stability problems. This work reports a novel method of mapping slider-disk and slider-particle-disk interactions. The test setup includes a specially prepared disk, a DC magnetic field generator and a temperature control unit by which the sensitivity of testing system to the level of energy disturbance is adjusted. The special disk is of the same structural design as the conventional magnetic disk except using a specially prepared magneto-optical (MO) layer of much lower Curie temperature and related supporting layers to replace the magnetic layer and related supporting layers of the magnetic disk media. Therefore, any interaction that generates a temperature above the Curie temperature of the MO layer will be recorded as a signature, mapped by optical and magnetic tools, and analyzed later.