Study of the stiction free magnetic recording head with DLC pad

Abstract

This paper presents the study of the stiction free magnetic recording head which has diamond-likecarbon (DLC) pad for use with laser zone texture disk and smooth disk. The magnetic recording head with DLC pad is one of the potential solutions to extend contact start stop (CSS) technology for further lower head-disk spacing, since it can decrease stiction and friction between magnetic recording head and magnetic recording disk during CSS. The optimization of air bearing surface (ABS) design for improving take off characteristics, the optimization of DLC pad design for improving tipping stability and the result of CSS reliability test under several environments are shown in this paper. It is found that the occurrence of tipping accelerates the wear of DLC pad, the degradation of the lubricant and the wear of carbon overcoat (COC) protective layer on the disk. Finally it is shown that the magnetic recording head, which has optimized ABS and optimized DLC pad, has small coefficients of stiction less than 2.0 and reliable CSS performance at 15 nm flying height (FH) on the laser zone texture disk having low bump height. Tipping and major wear of DLC pads are not observed under several environmental conditions with this optimized design.