Slip sliding away: A novel head-disk interface and its tribology (invited)

The continuous reduction of head-disk spacing has made the use of supersmooth media a necessity in gaining ultrahigh magnetic recording areal density. To overcome the stiction barrier associated with supersmooth disks without compromising the head flyability requirement, texture features can be transferred from the disk surface to the slider surface, creating a new type of head-disk interface, the padded slider interface. The tribology of a padded slider interface is in many ways different from that of the traditional head-disk interface with texture on the disk only. In this article, various unique tribological aspects of the padded slider interface are discussed in detail. Both theoretical modeling results and experimental data are presented to elucidate the stiction, friction, and wear behaviors of this novel head-disk interface. It is shown that the padded slider technology offers a viable alternative to the ramp load technology as a head-disk interface solution for the ultrahigh areal density. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)60108-1].