Abstract
A slider with an air-bearing surface that has a small spherical pad around the read/write elements on the trailing center pad was developed to reduce the meniscus and friction forces and slider clearance loss. Flying height modulation and slider instability are suppressed by the reduction of the meniscus force to less than 10% of the air-bearing lift force and the use of a spherical pad with a radius of less than 10 mm. Evaluation using an air-bearing surface model with a spherical pad showed that slider clearance was increased by 1 nm at a 5-nm nominal flying height. Evaluation using touchdown-takeoff testing of a spherical pad slider fabricated by depositing carbon on the center pad air-bearing surface by means of the lift-off resist technique showed that the spherical pad slider had a very small friction force and acoustic emission output up to a 5-nm interference height. It thus provides instability-free sliding in the near-contact regime.
