Abstract
The authors investigated head-disk interface design for in-contact recording systems using liquid bearing. The design concept of the liquid bearing is to realize a low bouncing height of sliders by using the meniscus attractive force of the lubricant between slider and disk, with high wear performance at the same time. It was found that lubricants with high surface energies suppressed the bouncing of contact sliders. A bouncing height of 3 nm was obtained for a combination of 30% contact sliders and MPBT lubricants. A contact slider design, with a meniscus-controlled contact pad, is proposed for contact sliders using liquid bearing. The bouncing of the slider was suppressed by controlling the etching depth of the meniscus-controlled contact pad, which was larger than the lubricant thickness. High wear performance of the in-contact recording system was confirmed by both the drag test for disks and the seek test for heads.
