Strategies for improvement of tribological characteristics at the head/disk interface

Tribological optimization of the head/disk interface is crucial to attain r eliable performance of hard disk drives. As the flying height of the slider above the disk continues to decrease with increase in recording density, t he concern for surface damage is greater than ever before. In this work a n ovel method to reduce debris contamination by way of trapping the particles in micro-grooves on the slider surface to protect the head is proposed. Te sts performed with dummy sliders with several types of strategically design ed micro-grooves show that the grooves are effective in removing the wear d ebris at the slider/disk interface. Furthermore, concept for stiction-free slider design has been investigated. Micro-bumps were fabricated on a slide r surface in order to reduce stiction, Preliminary tests show that compared with conventional sliders, these sliders result in significantly lower sti ction during contact-start-stop tests performed on the data zone of a magne tic disk. The concepts proposed in this work may be utilized in the design of future sliders for low flying heads on super-smooth disks.