Abstract
Recently, head-disk-interface (HDI) spacing in hard disk drives (HDDs) has been decreased under a few nanometers by the dynamic flying control (DFH) technology in order to achieve an ultra-high density magnetic recording. However, lubricant pick-up by head slider increases on the HDI with ultra-low flying height. In order to reduce the lubricant pick-up, the pick-up phenomena should be visualized by sensitive method, and that phenomena should be understand at the point of the pick-up mechanism. Therefore, we developed the slider surface analyzing (SSA) tester to observe the lubricant thickness distribution on the slider surface at unloading point. As the results, the lubricant is picked up by the DFH protrusion on trailing pad, when the back-off power is less than approximately 2 nm. On the other hand, the dewetting phenomena were observed on slider surface. The dewetting phenomena occurs the increase of the flying height at head loading after long soak at unloading position.
