A critical review of existing head-disk interface modeling capabilitie
s is given. Modeling of two important technologies, miniaturization of
current air-bearing devices and viscoelastic liquid bearings, e. g.,
VISqUS technology, is studied in a unified manner. New developments ar
e: (1) the Fokker-Planck equation is adopted for rarefaction effects (
instead of the Boltzmann equation) in air-bearing technology and (ii)
systematic studies on incompressible liquid bearings are performed.