3819 Design of air bearing with increased pitch mode damping for sliders with thermal protrusion

Abstract

We numerically investigated the touch down and take off characteristics of a head slider with thermal protrusion. Slider vibrations started to occur before the contact force rose up in the touch down process and sustained even after the contact force went out in the take off process. We proposed a slider with the pitch damping step (PDS). We showed that PDS is effective in lowering the touch down and take off heights with improved damping for the second pitch mode resonance of the slider.