Two dimensional position stability of head-slider and its in-situ characterization

This paper investigates a new phenomenon in nanometer spaced head-disk systems for ultra-high density recording: coupled position stability of head-slider in both flying height direction and tracking direction. The coupled 2 dimensional stability issue comes from slider-lube-disk interaction and inter-molecular interaction in head-disk interface. An in-situ method was designed and applied to study the stabilities of slider-lube-disk interface in both vertical (flying height) and horizontal (off track) directions. Two dimensional stability were studied with different lubricant, different lubricant thickness, skew angle and environmental temperature.