Air-Bearing Design Towards Super Stable Head-Disk Interface

Pushing recording density towards Tb/in² and beyond requires reducing flying height, the mechanical spacing between head-slider and disk-media, to 2.5~3 nm or even lower. One critical challenge at such ultra-low flying height is how to come up with super-stable head-disk interface design so as to achieve stable flying height even with the strong appearance of the short-range interaction forces, such as electro-static force, intermolecular forces, lubricant interaction force, and so on. Air-bearing design and design strategy are investigated in this work aiming at significantly increased stability of the head-disk spacing for the worst cases of ultra-low flying height recording systems. The authors noticed that a stable head-disk interface requires a full air-bearing domination even at a roughness imposed minimum flying height. Investigations presented in this work indicate that high pressure and high pressure concentration technology are effective approaches for achieving high stability of flying height and reducing the disturbance of short range interaction forces.