Current and future approaches for laser texturing of thin film media

Laser zone texture technology is widely used to enhance the tribological pe rformance of high areal density media. A review of laser texture design app roaches with stiction modeling and contact stress analysis is presented. Cr iteria developed for optimizing sombrero and crater bump designs for NiP/Al substrates and spherical bump designs for glass and glass-ceramic substrat es are introduced. Manufacturability issues in maintaining bump height cont rol for both NIP/Al and alternative substrates are presented. The extendibi lity of laser texture technology to meet the requirements of magnetic desig ns in excess of 10 Gb/in(2) is discussed.