To achieve extremely high-density magnetic recording of 1 Tbit per square inch using conventional technologies, the distance between the recording slider and the rotating disk needs to be less than 5 nm. For successful operation, disk and slider surfaces must also be extremely smooth with root-mean-square roughness values of few angstroms. However, ultra-low flying super smooth head-disk interfaces may be exposed to a significant amount of intermittent contact, adhesion, stiction and friction that can cause the interface to collapse. In order to circumvent such problems, many novel techniques have been proposed, such as laser zone texturing, contact pads and surface microtexturing. A reliable method to reduce adhesion and friction in ultra-low flying head-disk interfaces is to control the area of contact and roughen the interface, which allows the slider to fly at sub-5 nm with minimal contact. A technique known as preferential texturing provides a unique roughening of the air-bearing surface, where parts of the surface are removed, i.e., subtractive texturing process. In this paper, the effect of preferential texturing (roughening) of slider air-bearing surfaces on the adhesion and friction forces are investigated using quasi-dynamic models. The simulation results show that surface texturing reduces adhesion and friction by reducing the effective area of contact between the slider and media surfaces and by preferentially roughening the interface. The simulation results of friction compare favorably with experimental data.

Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Abstract-A dynamic two-degree-of-freedom contact with friction model of the head-disk interface (llD1) is presented accounting for slider thermal protrusion and its influence on the IIDI dynamics. Using this model, which includes roughness, the applied power to the thermal protrusion is calculated that leads to minimum flying-height modulations. The model predictions are verified by drive-level experimental results.Index Terms-dynamic model; magnetic storage; head-disk interface; thermal protrusion.