In a disk drive, a magnetic recording head is made of read and write elements. The write element is used to record and erase data bits arranged in circular tracks on the disk while the read element plays back a recorded magnetic signal. The magnetic recording head is mounted on a slider which is connected to a suspension arm, the suspension arm urging the slider toward a magnetic storage disk. When the disk is rotated the slider flies above the surface of the disk on a cushion of air which is generated by the rotating disk.
The read element is generally made of a small stripe of multilayer magnetic thin films which have either magnetoresistance (MR) effect or giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, namely which changes resistance in response to a magnetic field change such as magnetic flux incursions (bits) from magnetic storage disk. Recorded data can be read from a magnetic medium because the external magnetic field from the recorded medium (the signal field) applies a change in the direction of magnetization in the read element, which in turn causes a change in resistance in the read element and a corresponding change in the sensed current or voltage.
As recording density and data transfer rate have increased over the past a few years, critical dimensions in the recording device such as track width, read sensor, write gap and coil size have decreased accordingly. Also, the spacing between the air bearing surface (ABS) and the media have become smaller and smaller. For reference, recording heads with 40 gb/in2 products typically have fly heights of about 12 nanometers. This fly height will continue to decrease in the future. This reduction in head critical dimensions and fly height, while beneficial to magnetic performance, also comes with cost on thermal and mechanic reliability.
There are several factors that have until now limited the reduction in slider flying height. These factors might reasonably be ignored at flying heights of above 20 nanometers, but would become major concerns at flying heights on the order of <10 nanometers. These include variations in the sliders themselves, variations in the structure that supports the sliders, and media surface roughness.
Of particular concern is the instability caused by disk-head contact, which is more frequent at lower slider flying heights, but can occur at nearly any fly height nonetheless. While new processes are ever making disk surfaces smoother and smoother, disks inherently have asperities. When the slider contacts these asperities, the impact can cause an off-track motion and/or vertical oscillations, resulting in misreads, data overwrites, and failure to write properly.
At lower fly heights, disk waviness may also cause head-disk contact induced off-track motion and/or vertical oscillations. To ensure that the head remains properly aligned with the data tracks, the disks must be securely attached to the spindle. Current practice is to separate the disks in the stack with spacer rings, and position a spacer ring on top of the disk/spacer stack. Then a top ring with several apertures is placed over the top spacer ring. The disks are bolted to the spindle via bolts extending through the apertures in the top ring. Great pressure must be exerted by the bolts on the top ring in order to prevent slippage of the disks in the event that the drive is bumped or uneven thermal expansion breaks the frictional coupling, because once the disks slip, the drive loses its servo and the data may not be readable.
A major drawback of the current practice is that when the bolts are tightened, the top ring and spacer become deformed due to the uneven pressures exerted by the individual bolts. Disks are typically formed from aluminum or glass. Aluminum is more easily deformed, so any external stress can cause deformations to the disk. Glass, too, will deform under uneven stress patterns. The deformation translates out to the disk, creating an uneven “wavy” disk surface, which is most prominent at the inner diameter of the disk.
Further, it has been found that stresses induced on the top disk in the stack transfer down into some or all of the remaining disks in the stack, causing the remaining disks in the drive to show similar unevenness.
Thus, the clearance between the slider and the disk is limited by the curvature of the disk, which is more pronounced towards the inner diameter due to clamping. To avoid interfering with the disk at the inner diameter, the slider is usually designed to fly higher to compensate for the curvature at the inner diameter of the disk. This curvature then translates into an increase in the magnetic signal variation.
Normal tolerances in slider fabrication lead to structural variations among the sliders in any given batch. Consequently, the flying heights of sliders in the batch are distributed over a range, although the flying height of each slider individually is substantially constant. Thus, some sliders will be more prone to intermittent contact with the disk surface.
Variations in supporting structures occur primarily in the transducer support arm, the suspension or gimbal structure, slider geometry and load arm. These variations influence the flying height, and the nature of a given slider's reaction to any disturbances, e.g. due to shock or vibration.
Thermal protrusion of the head also contributes to more frequent head-disk contact. FIGS. 1 and 2A–2C illustrate examples of a conventional composite type thin-film magnetic head 10. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of the head 10 perpendicular to the plane of the air bearing surface (ABS). FIG. 2A shows the slider 11 flying above the disk 13.
In these figures, the reference numeral 12 denotes a substrate, 15 denotes an undercoating, 20 denotes a lower shield layer of the MR reproducing head part, 21 denotes an upper shield layer of the MR head part, which can also act as a lower pole of an inductive recording head part, 22 denotes a MR layer provided through an insulating layer 23 between the lower shield layer 20 and the upper shield layer 21, 26 denotes a write gap layer, 27 denotes a lower insulating layer deposited on the upper shield layer 21, 28 denotes a coil conductor formed on the lower insulating layer 27, 29 denotes an upper insulating layer deposited so as to cover the coil conductor 28, 30 denotes an upper pole, and 34 denotes a pad that would connect the read or write coil to other components in the drive. In general, there would be a plurality of pads 34 on the slider 11. Note that the pad 34 connects directly to the coil conductor 28. The upper pole 30 is magnetically connected with the lower pole (upper shield layer) 21 at its rear portion so as to constitute a magnetic yoke together with the lower pole 21.
The thermal expansion coefficients for the substrate and the various layers of the head differ, so when the head becomes heated during use, some layers will begin to protrude from the ABS. FIG. 2B depicts the head 10 when the write element is not operating, and particularly that the spacing may vary due to recession of various materials and structure due to the ABS fabrication process. FIG. 2C is a detailed diagram of the heat transfer and protrusion profile of the head 10 when the head is active (e.g., when the write coil is energized). One issue with heads is that the write-induced protrusion of the pole and overcoat can cause head-media contact, resulting in errors. This can affect the write head signal to noise ratio with alterations in the magnetic spacing between the head and the media. In older generations of heads, this was not a problem because the head was flying much higher and device size was bigger leading to easier heat dissipation. However, the coil length in modern heads has decreased to accommodate high data rate advancement. Consequently, Joule heating from the write current through coil and eddy current in write pole/yoke and magnetic hysteresis of magnetic materials are confined in a tiny space near the ABS, which typically lead to unacceptable thermal protrusion and the drive reliability concerns mentioned above. As can be seen in FIG. 2C, the top write pole 30 and overcoat protrude from the ABS 32 toward the media 13. The protrusion amount is typically 1–4 nanometers.
One proposed design of a slider would drag on the disk surface, thereby more precisely fixing a head/disk spacing based on a peak roughness of the disk surface. Any improvement in setting the transducer/recording surface gap, however, would be at the cost of excessive wear to the slider, media recording surface, or both.
What is needed is a way to reduce off-track motion and vertical vibration caused by slider-disk contact, thereby reducing errors, reducing read and write signal variations caused by the varying flying height, and allowing the slider to be in close proximity to the media during reading and/or writing for allowing the heads to read and write with reduced track width, bit length and error rate.