Simulation of Static Flying Attitudes with Different Heat Transfer Models for a Flying-Height Control Slider with Thermal Protrusion

The thermal flying height control (TFC), aka dynamic fly height (DFH), technique has been recently used in the head disk interface of hard disk drives to obtain a lower head-media spacing. The air bearing cooling effect, i.e., the heat conduction between the slider and the air film, has been incorporated in the numerical thermal–mechanical simulation of the slider’s static performance. However, the heating effect of the viscous dissipation of the air flow has not been considered yet. In this article, both effects are included in the simulation of a flying slider with its flying height controlled by thermal protrusion, and different models for the air bearing cooling are used to obtain the slider’s static flying attitudes. The simulation results directly show that the air bearing cooling is dominant compared with the viscous heating. All of the air bearing cooling models, including a recent one that considers the dependence of the air molecular mean free path on the air temperature, have simulation results close to each other. The largest relative difference in the simulated flying height is less than 9% even when the transducer flying height is lowered to below 2 nm.     

Ultra-low-flying-height design from the viewpoint of contact vibration

The design of a head-disk interface for ultra-low flying height has been studied from the viewpoint of contact vibration. It is known that a super-smooth disk is necessary for a slider to fly at an ultra-low flying height; however, such a disk increases the friction force, which potentially increases the vibration of the slider. To solve this problem, the head-disk interface must be optimized to reduce this increased vibration. It has been shown that a large pitch angle and center-pad-mounted read/write elements have advantages in terms of slider/disk contact. It has also been found that a micro-texture on the air bearing surface can prevent contact vibration. Moreover, a frequency-shift-damping slider was found to damp the vibration effectively. To further investigate these findings, numerical simulation and modeling of slider dynamics during contact have been performed. Their results revealed two zones of contact vibration: a stable zone and an unstable zone.     

Flying Height Drop Due to Air Entrapment in Lubricant

Recently, it is found experimentally that the flying height of an air bearing slider is influenced by the lubricant on the disk. It is explained as the air molecules are entrapped in the lubricant under the slider due to the high air bearing pressure, causing the reduction in air bearing force, and hence, the flying height decreases accordingly. This paper employs both experiment and simulation to study such a phenomenon. First, the flying height vibration signals of a slider are detected by a laser Doppler vibrometer, on both lubed and delubed disks. It is observed that the heater touchdown power of the slider is approximately 3.4 mW more for delubed disk than the lubed disk. It suggests that the lubricant may cause the flying height lower. Second, a new model is developed to describe the pressure drop due to the air entrapment. Next, simulations are conducted on three different slider designs based on the new model. Flying height drops are investigated due to the air entrapment. The simulation results are compared with published experimental results, and good correlations are observed for the values of the parameters alpha and beta selected. Finally, the effects of solubility on the flying height are discussed, and the flying height drops are evaluated. It is suggested that the slider design must consider the phenomenon to get more accurate simulation results on flying height.     

Deformation and flying height orbit of glass sheets on aerostatic porous bearing guides

Handling devices have been developed for liquid crystal display fabrication that are equipped with aerostatic porous bearing pads to feed large glass sheets while supporting them with compressed air in a non-contact state. The deformation behavior and the orbit of the flying height of glass sheets on porous bearing pads during the feeding process were investigated using the compressible Reynolds equation and Timoshenko's thin film theory. Theoretical and experimental results showed that glass sheets are easily deformed by the pressure distribution in the air film and that they tilt easily on the bearing pad during the feeding. The results also showed that the hole pitch for air suction and the interval between bearing pads arranged next to each other should be shorter to achieve more stable feeding of the glass sheets with a constant flying height.     

Inert Gas Filled Head–Disk Interface for Future Extremely High Density Magnetic Recording

Inert gas filled head–disk interface (HDI) is a possible solution in reducing the magnetic spacing between the magnetic head and the magnetic media for achieving further increased recording density of a magnetic recording system. This article investigated the flying and thermal performances of a thermal actuated slider at inert gas filled HDI by using a couple-field analysis method which consists of a finite element model of the entire slider, an air bearing model based on the generalized lubrication equation and a heat transfer model which incorporates various molecular dynamics models and considers temperature effects. The simulation studies showed that the variation of gap flying height (FH) with the heater power in the inert gas is quite similar to that in air. It is also found that the slider’s thermal actuation efficiency in helium is slightly better than those in argon and air. However, the temperature effects in a fully sealed drive are totally different to those in an open drive. As a result, the inert gas filled HDI normally requires a larger thermal actuation stroke due to the temperature effects in a fully sealed drive.     

磁盘速度与容纳系数对硬盘气膜静态特性的影响

随着硬盘(Hard disk drives,HDDs)中浮动块与磁盘间飞行高度的降低,气体分子与磁头/磁盘间的交互作用逐渐增强,磁盘速度及容纳系数(Accommodation coefficients, ACs)对气膜承载特性的影响越来越重要。采用一种无网格法—最小二乘有限差分(Least square finite difference, LSFD)法,对简化的分子气膜润滑(Molecular gas film lubrication, MGL)方程进行求解,研究了磁盘速度、磁头和磁盘表面ACs对HDDs超低飞高气膜静态特性的影响。数值结果表明：对称性分子交互作用时,磁头和磁盘表面ACs对气膜静态特性的影响明显;非对称性分子交互作用时,磁盘表面ACs对气膜静态特性的影响较大,而磁头/浮动块表面ACs的影响较小;不同ACs条件下,随着磁盘速度或最小飞行高度的增加,压力幅值点位置的变化较均匀。     

Numerical Simulation of the Head/Disk Interface for Patterned Media

The use of patterned media is a new approach proposed to extend the recording densities of hard disk drives beyond 1 Tb/in.². Bit-patterned media (BPM) overcome the thermal stability problems of conventional media by using single-domain islands for each bit of recorded information, thereby eliminating the magnetic transition noise (Albrecht et al., Magnetic Recording on Patterned Media, 2003). Considering steady state conditions, we have transferred the pattern from the disk surface onto the slider surface and have investigated the pressure generation due to the bit pattern. To reduce the numerical complexity, we have generated the bit pattern only in the areas of the slider near the trailing edge, where the spacing is small. Cylindrical protrusions were modeled using very small mesh size on the order of nanometers to obtain the flying characteristics for the entire slider air bearing surface (ABS) using the “CMRR” finite element Reynolds equation simulator (Duwensee et al., Microsyst Technol, 2006; Wahl et al., STLE Tribol Trans, 39(1), 1996). The effect of pattern height, pattern diameter, slider skew angle, and slider pitch angle on flying height of a typical slider is investigated. Numerical results show that the flying height decreases for a patterned slider and the change in flying height is a function of the pattern height and ratio of the pattern diameter to the pattern pitch. In comparison to discrete track media, the flying height loss is larger for a patterned slider disk interface for the same recessed area of pattern.     

超低温弹簧蓄能密封圈动密封性能有限元分析与优化设计*

为进一步探究超低温工况下弹簧蓄能密封圈系统的动密封性能,建立弹簧蓄能密封圈系统的等效二维轴对称有限元模型;对密封圈轴向装配以及径向装配2种典型数值装配过程进行模拟、分析与比较,利用稳定装配后的构型计算在常温与超低温下密封圈在不同介质压力下的密封特性,并分析密封圈在不同工况下的动密封特性。基于数值模拟试验结果,对弹簧蓄能密封圈内唇表面结构、底座宽度以及弹簧刚度进行优化,并对3种优化策略进行评估验证。结果表明：在室温与超低温下,轴滑动的摩擦力都随介质压力的增大而增加;在超低温环境下夹套材料由于收缩而增大了对轴的压力,轴滑动时的摩擦力比常温下更大;随着介质压力增大,低温与室温下摩擦力差异减小。提出的3种优化方案都可在对密封性影响较小的前提下减小轴在工作过程中摩擦力,其中蓄能弹簧刚度的优化对于改善密封圈性能最为有效。     

A study of electrical charge at head-disk interface

The electrical charge at head-disk interface (HDI) of disk drives becomes increasingly important as head-disk spacing drops below 10 nm range. In this study, a new method of measuring electrical charge at HDI is presented. It involves measuring magnetic read-back signals (i.e. PW50), while the flying height (FH) is lowered by electrostatic force. Typical HDI charges are in the range of –0.2 to –0.9 V, depending on individual head–disk combination. Experiments were also conducted to eliminate the HDI charge by using an ionizer and surface treatment of magnetic heads. It was found that the HDI charge can be effectively eliminated by treating the magnetic head with a fluorinated carbon coating. The mechanisms of HDI charge generation and elimination are discussed.     

Effects of temperature dependent air properties on the performances of a thermal actuated slider

Thermal actuated sliders have been widely used in today's hard disk drive industry for its advantages of easier control of flying height (FH) and less risk of contacts with the disk over the conventional slider. In this paper, we used a coupled-field analysis method, which includes an air bearing model, a heat transfer model and a thermal-structural finite element (FE) model to investigate the flying and thermal performances of a thermal actuated slider at various environmental temperatures. We also proposed a generalized mean free path model to incorporate various molecular dynamics models and consider temperature effects of the mean free path. Some temperature dependent air properties, such as the viscosity and the thermal conductivity are also considered in the simulation. It is found that the mean free path is a crucial parameter in determine air bearing and heat transfer across the head-disk interface (HDI). Our simulation results also show that the temperature effects of the viscosity and the thermal conductivity are contrary to that of the mean free path, which limit the variations of air bearing and heat transfer as the environmental temperature increases. However, their temperature effects still need to be considered for an accurate simulation, especially when the disk drives operate in a wide temperature range.     

Sensitivity analysis of pico and femto sliders

The flying height sensitivity of pico and femto sliders on air bearing contour design, operating conditions and manufacturing tolerances was studied numerically. A Monte Carlo analysis was performed to evaluate the distribution of flying height, pitch angle and roll angle, assuming the selected independent variables have normal distributions. Two types of pico sliders and one type of femto sliders were modeled and simulated. The results show that flying height is strongly influenced by the contour design of the air bearing slider. The resulting distributions of flying height, pitch angle and roll angle are near Gaussian.     

Air Entrapment in Nanometer-Thick Lubricant Films and its Effect on Slider Flying Height in a Hard Disk Drive

Experimental data are presented, showing that the flying height of a slider in a hard disk drive can be altered by the chemical nature of the molecularly-thin lubricant film on the disk surface. It is suggested that this effect is likely due to entrapment of the air molecules, both nitrogen and oxygen, within the lubricant film, which results in pressurization loss within the air bearing gap, and lower slider flying height. For the two advanced multidentate lubricants reported in this study, the amount of flying height change is almost insignificant for one of them, but amount to about 0.7?nm, i.e. a significant fraction of the magnetic spacing budget for the other. Bulk air solubility data suggest that the magnitude of this effect is diminished for lubricant molecules with a lower density of backbone ether linkages.     

表面结构对纳米级气膜稀薄流域分布的影响

磁头与磁盘的特征高度目前已经下降到纳米量级,在此微小间隙下,气体表现出明显的稀薄效应特征。建立适用于纳米间隙下的控制方程,并根据方程特点采用特殊处理方法成功对控制方程进行数值求解,采用数值分析和实验方法分析表面结构变化对稀薄流域和磁头飞行姿态的影响。研究结果表明：在纳米级气膜润滑间隙下,采用逆 Knud-sen 数来划分稀薄流域比仅从特征膜厚高度方面考虑更合理;负压型磁头的主要工作区间在滑流区和过渡区,且过渡流域所占比例要明显高于滑流区域。稀薄效应最大的区域不是在气膜厚度最薄的磁头尾部,而是在压力突然下降且气膜较薄的阶梯过渡区域;磁头 U 型气垫、尾端两侧浅台阶和中间台阶结构变化会影响气流流向,从而影响压力分布,使得稀薄流域也跟随发生变化。     

LOW FLYING HEIGHT MEASUREMENT WITH MULTI-WAVELENGTH INTERFEROMETRY

A method for measurement of ultra-low flying height in head-disk spacing is described. Three different wavelengths are selected out from white light by filters to measure the spacing simultaneously. Besides solving the ambiguity problem, a more reliable result is achieved by using weighted average of measurement results from three different wavelengths, where the weight is dependent upon spacing. Fringe-bunching correction algorithm （FBC） and spot-tilling technique are adopted to suppress calibration and random errors. Moreover, incident bandwidth correction （IBC） method is introduced to compensate the error caused by low monochromaticity of incident light. Based on dynamic flying height tester （DFHT Ⅱ）, with the redesigned of photo-electric conversion and signal acquirement module, an instrument has been developed. And comparing the experimental data from the instrument with those from a KLA-FHT D6, the discrepancy is less than 5%. It indicates that the instrument is suitable to perform ultra-low flying height measurement and satisfies the reauirement of magnetic heads manufacturing.     

Consideration and compensation for precision optical flying height measurement

It is a big challenge to determine ultra-low slider flying height accurately. The intensity interferometry flying height testing method is widely used to determine slider flying height. However, the intrinsic measurement errors of the method are becoming non-negligible with the decrease in slider flying height. Strategies have to be developed to minimize the errors. To measure flying height with a normal incidence optical flying height tester, a calibration process is required to determine several constants used in flying height calculation. In practice, the calibration is usually done simply by retracting the slider from the disk and measuring the intensity minima and maxima of the interferogram during the retracting process. It has been demonstrated that the single most important source of error in the flying height measurement is associated with errors in the determination of the intensity maxima and minima. In this work, the effects of optical filter, the responding frequency of photodetector, and the lack of the first order intensity minimum on the determination of the intensity maxima and minima are studied. Methodologies to minimize the errors in flying height measurement caused by the above factors are developed.     

Static and dynamic characteristics of active-head sliders

Active-head sliders with a unimorph piezoelectric actuator for flying height control were experimentally evaluated. It was found that the stroke of the actuator is 1.3 to 1.5 nm/V without flying over the disk. The adjustment amount of flying height is about 1.4 nm/V when the active-head slider is flying over the disk. It was found that flying height could be reduced and decrease from 24 to 10 nm by applying 10 V to the actuator under flying condition. Both the air pressure generated at the active-pad and the impact pressure due to the head/disk contact must be taken into account for precise control of flying height.     

Frequency Analyses of Air Bearing Slider in Near Contact and Contact States

Determining the air bearing frequencies is important and essential to understand the complex flying performances of slider. However, in typical flying height test, it is usually difficult to distinguish the air bearing frequencies in the experimental data, especially when the slider is in full flying state. In such a case, it is optional to employ simulation to help determine the air bearing frequencies and their harmonic components. This paper performs both time and frequency domain simulations to analyze air bearing frequencies of a pemto slider and compare the results with experimental data obtained using laser Doppler vibrometer. It is found that the simulation results are well correlated with the experimental results. Time domain simulation provides not only the air bearing frequencies, but also the harmonic frequencies. Frequency domain simulation, on the other hand, provides clear identification of the three dominant air bearing frequencies, with additional information such as air bearing stiffness and damping obtainable. It is suggested that simulations in both time and frequency domains should be conducted to assist in determining the air bearing frequencies and their harmonic components.     

安装误差对纳米间隙磁头飞行姿态的影响研究

考虑安装误差引起的磁头俯仰角误差和侧翻角误差,建立了磁头飞行数学模型,通过数值方法分析了安装误差对纳米间隙磁头飞行姿态主要参数的影响,并与试验结果进行了对比分析。结果表明,俯仰角误差对飞行高度和俯仰角有明显影响,随着俯仰角安装误差的增加,磁头飞高和俯仰角偏差增加,对侧翻角的影响可以忽略。侧翻角误差只对侧翻角有明显影响,随着侧翻角安装误差的增加,磁头飞行侧翻角偏差增加,对磁头飞行高度和俯仰角的影响可以忽略,理论分析和实验结果吻合较好。磁头设计和装配时,应控制磁头的俯仰角安装误差。     

Effect of environment humidity and temperature on stationary and transient flying responses of air bearing slider

It is well known that the environment humidity and temperature have a significant influence on the flying height of an air bearing slider. However, not many research papers address this topic, especially when the transient flying response is considered. This paper studies the influences of the environment humidity and temperature on both the stationary and transient flying responses of slider by simulation. A slider design for the thermal protrusion application is addressed. The reason for causing the drop of the air bearing pressure is discussed, and the methods for decreasing the drop are proposed. It is observed that the environment humidity and temperature may determine whether the slider is in full flying state or in partial flying/partial dragging state, when the slider is released from a certain height. The reason may be due to the high humidity and temperature which weakens the air bearing. As a result, the air bearing becomes not strong enough to support well the full flying of slider when the influence of the intermolecular force is significant. Slider vibrations for the full flying case and the partial flying/partial dragging case are analyzed in frequency domain, and the slider vibration frequencies are discussed. It shows that the environment temperature and humidity have significant effects on both the stationary and transient flying responses of the slider.     

On tribological problems in magnetic disk recording technology

Critical tribology problems of the head-disk interface are reviewed. Surface topography of hard disks is discussed along with experimental results concerning the friction and stiction behavior of lubricated carbon coated disks. The effect of environmental conditions on the headdisk interface is analyzed together with current techniques to measure the flying height between slider and disk in the nanometer spacing range. The effect of air bearing design on the tribology of the head disk interface is discussed and a critical evaluation of recently proposed approaches towards contact recording is presented.