The contact dynamics of pico sliders is investigated using a high bandwidth
laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) and a high bandwidth acoustic emission (AE)
sensor. Sliding contact of the slider near the glide avalanche point as an
alyzed for a lubricant thickness of 1.5 nm, 2.5 nm, and 3.5 nm, respectivel
y, Slider airbearing modes as well as torsional and bending mode vibrations
are investigated as a function of disk velocity and lubricant thickness, D
amping of the airbearing pitch and roll frequency is found to increase with
increased lubricant thickness. Nonlinear slider/lubricant interactions are
observed leading to additional peaks in the LDV spectrum near the bending
mode frequency. Nonlinear effects due to slider/lubricant interactions are
modeled using a nonlinear stiffness term in the equation of motion. The num
erical and experimental results are found to be in good agreement.