Strategies for improvement of tribological characteristics at the head/disk interface

Tribological optimization of the head/disk interface is crucial to attain reliable performance of hard disk drives. As the flying height of the slider above the disk continues to decrease with increase in recording density, the concern for surface damage is greater than ever before. In this work a novel method to reduce debris contamination by way of trapping the particles in micro-grooves on the slider surface to protect the head is proposed. Tests performed with dummy sliders with several types of strategically designed micro-grooves show that the grooves are effective in removing the wear debris at the slider/disk interface. Furthermore, concept for stiction-free slider design has been investigated. Micro-bumps were fabricated on a slider surface in order to reduce stiction. Preliminary tests show that compared with conventional sliders, these sliders result in significantly lower stiction during contact-start-stop tests performed on the data zone of a magnetic disk. The concepts proposed in this work may be utilized in the design of future sliders for low flying heads on super-smooth disks.