An active slider for practical contact recording

The authors report designs for and experimental results from sliders which achieve contact recording at full speed rotation on rigid disks. In the proposed scheme, the problem of wear is mitigated by integrating an active bender into the slider. The bender carries the recording element and can raise and lower it on demand (with an applied voltage) to contact or some desired value. This permits the slider, or mother ship to be always flown at a safe distance from the disk. Magnetic and mechanical data which demonstrate the use of this slider class as a magnetic recording device, as a potential surface-analysis tool, and as a convenient test vehicle for heads are shown