Dynamic instability of flying head slider and stabilizing design for near-contact magnetic recording

The dynamic instability of a flying head slider is described, and a design guideline is presented for a slider that can stably fly at a height of less than 5 nm. The current use of shrouded Rayleigh step-bearing slider has been a good way to increase air-bearing stiffness and damping while reducing meniscus adhesion and friction forces, but does not have enough ability to achieve a small flying height less than 5 nm. On the basis of meniscus interfacial force theory, I proposed a spherical pad slider that is inherently stable in the near-contact regime and that has high durability against intermittent contact, which is necessary for future high-density magnetic recording. This design concept is being partly realized by thermal flying height control technique.