Modeling and Simulation of the Interaction between 3-D Lubricant Droplets on the Slider Surface and Air Flow within the Head/Disk Interface of Disk Drives

摘要

It is estimated that the flying height of air bearing sliders has to be reduced to about 3.5nm to further increase the areal storage density of disk drive to 1Tbits/in{sup}2. At a clearance as small as 3.5nm, which is approaching the thickness of the lubricant layer coated on the disk surface, the interaction between the air flow and lubricant flow may become nonnegligible and has to be considered in the designing of next generation head/disk interface technology. Previous experiments have demonstrated that the air flow and lubricant flow under the slider are coupled together and the interaction imposes a nonnegligible impact on the flyability of low flying sliders.