Textured Sliders as Means to Reduce Adhesion in Ultra Low Flying Head Disk Interfaces

Abstract

A means of avoiding the negative consequences of ultra low flying super smooth Head/Disk Interfaces (HDIs) is to use textured sliders while still maintaining super smooth magnetic media. In this paper, the effect of preferential texturing (roughening) of slider air-bearing surfaces (ABS) on the intermolecular/adhesion forces at HDIs is investigated using a quasi-dynamic adhesion model. Super smooth (untextured), preferentially textured and rough sliders were investigated in this study. First, they were measured using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and subsequently roughness parameters were extracted and used in the modeling. Preferential texturing provides a unique roughening of the ABS, where parts of the original surface are not affected, thus maintaining the initial roughness, with other parts of the surface being removed. This texturing has the net effect of reducing the effective or nominal area of contact between the slider and media surfaces, which plays an important role in the adhesion forces at the HDI. The simulation results indicate that preferential texturing can alleviate the problem of high adhesion forces in ultra-low flying HDI’s.