Thermal study of nanometer spaced head-disk systems

As technology moves towards 2.5-3 nm fly-height, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the thermally induced slider deformation and the heat transfer between head slider and disk media. Up to now, all the slider deformation analysis assumes the heat flux over all slider´s air bearing surface (ABS) as a constant and, therefore, lacks of expected accuracy. An accurate heat flux distribution is important to calculate the thermal protrusion of slider. A model of heat transfer between slider and disk is introduced in this work to study the heat flux and heat transfer in head-disk interface. The heat flux distribution on slider ABS is obtained by solving the Reynolds equation and heat conduction equation in slider with velocity slip and temperature jump boundary conditions. Finite element (FE) method is, then, applied to analyze the temperature rise induced by the writing operation and the corresponding thermal protrusion of slider under various conditions.