Effect of slider load on the wear debris contamination tendency of head/slider

Head contamination is a serious problem that must be avoided for high relia bility. It has been previously reported that the wear debris contamination behavior of head/slider varies as the flying height of the slider is lowere d. The emphasis of this paper is on identifying the trend of wear debris co ntamination on the air bearing surface of a slider due to contact with the disk. The surface damage effect of the slider was accelerated by conducting sliding tests in drag conditions. It was found that for a wide range of ef fective slider load, the wear debris tend to accumulate near the edges of t he air bearing features on the slider surface. As a means to prevent the he ad from being contaminated by wear debris, the use of micro-grooved surface is proposed. The effectiveness of micro-grooves on a silicon surface in tr apping wear particles is demonstrated. Hence, grooves may be used strategic ally on the slider air bearing surface to develop contamination-free slider s.