Exploration of head-disk interface technologies at ultra small head-disk spacing

Abstract

Information storage is of crucial importance in the modern society. Up to now, magnetic data storage technology, represented by magnetic hard disk drive technology, has always been the dominant information storage technology for the society. The area density is the key performance parameter for the magnetic disk drives and magnetic data storage technology. High density recording requires high resolution data recording and retrieval. Such a high resolution recording and retrieval is achieved by flying the read/write head as close to the disk surface as possible. An extremely low flying height of 3 nm is required for 1 Tb/in2 areal density.Starting from analyses of technological challenges towards such extremely low flying height, exploration of new technologies towards 3 nm flying height was reported in this thesis. The major areas of focus include technologies to minimize the flying height modulation caused by disk waviness with nanometer amplitude, technologies to reduce flying height variation under various possible working altitudes, load/unload technology at extremely low flying height, nano-actuator technology for future flying height control and so on. The author is among the pioneers in the society in exploring technology solutions towards 3 nm flying height.