Dynamics of Fly-Contact Head Disk Interface

Fly-contact head disk interface (HDI) is known as a promising approach for the further reduction of the magnetic spacing between the head and media for ultra high recording density. In this paper, we report a numerical simulation study on the dynamics of the fly-contact head disk interface. It is found that design of a stable and reliable fly-contact HDI needs to consider the balance of minimizing both the fly-height (FH) variation and the contact force. The critical contact force - the minimal contact force for a stable fly-contact HDI is explored and a critical contact force of as low as 3.1 mN is obtained. It is found that the critical contact force depends on the combined effect of air bearing force, adhesive force and suspension load, which can be optimized by a proper air bearing surface and suspension design.