Design of optical flying head for magnetooptical recording

Since the optical flying head (OFH) for magnetooptical recording systems requires stricter static and dynamic characteristics of slider air bearings within an optical tilt tolerance over the entire recording band than conventional magnetic head sliders in hard disk drives, a new design to keep the focusing and tracking ability stable is essential. This paper proposes a design methodology to automatically determine the optimum configurations of the OFH satisfying the desired design requirements by using the proposed design framework. The desired flying characteristics considered in this paper are to minimize the variation in flying height between the solid immersion lens (SIL) and the disk from a target value, satisfying the restriction of the minimum flying height to keep the pitch and roll angles within an optical tilt tolerance and to ensure a higher air-bearing stiffness. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology by showing that the static and dynamic flying characteristics of the optimally designed OFH are enhanced in comparison with those of the original. The gap between the SIL and the MO disk can be kept at less than 100 nm, even if the optical tilt tolerance of the SIL is considered.