A NEGATIVE-PRESSURE MICROHEAD SLIDER FOR ULTRALOW SPACING WITH UNIFORM FLYING HEIGHT

The negative-pressure head slider we developed for ultralow flying features a newly shaped air bearing surface that gains sufficient suction force, because the distance between the two side rails gradually widens from the leading to the trailing edge of the slider. The slider has a fast takeoff, and the flying height is insensitive to disk velocity. It also avoids the dust accumulation problem seen in the conventional negative-pressure slider. The slider's absence of taper suppresses generation of floating force, resulting in a microslider with relatively wide siderails. The flare angle of the siderails also contributes to making the flying height insensitive to the yaw angle, resulting in a uniform flying height over the entire disk surface. The recess needed to generate suction is a shallow 2-mu-m, so the flexible rail shape is easily manufactured using photolithography.