Effects of intermolecular forces on sub-10nm spaced sliders

Summary form only given. The deduction of slider/disk spacing into sub-10nm range reveals some physical phenomena and interactions that are trivial and rare to be noticed for a slider flying far above 10nm spacing. The intermolecular forces, such as van der Waals and Casimir forces, become so important in the range that any negligence is expected to be impractical. The effects of intermolecular forces on the ABS design have been reported, and it is also found that the Casimir effect is serious in the head disk interface. It is an obvious challenge to introduce the intermolecular forces to the current HDI modeling so as to simulate a femto slider with a nanometer spaced flying height.