抄録
The rapid increase in the recording density of magnetic disk drives has required decreasing the flying height of magnetic head sliders to approximately 10 nm. Under such low flying height conditions, however, the heat generated by the high-frequency current in the writer coils and the rise in the ambient temperature both cause local protrusion of head elements. Such protrusion reduces the flying height below the design value, thus reducing the safety margin for head/disk interference. To analyze this problem, the heat transfer in the head slider, the thermal deformation of the head, and the flying height changes of the slider due to the deformation were numerically simulated. The results showed that (i) decreasing the alumina basecoat thickness reduced the protrusion; (ii) the flying height reduction due to write-current-induced protrusion could be partly compensated by increasing the air pressure on the air-bearing surface; and (iii) almost the entire magnitude of ambient-temperature-induced protrusion translated into flying height reduction.
