Experimental Study of Nanoscale Head-Disk Heat Transfer In Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

To study the nanoscale heat transfer and laser-related protrusions in heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), we performed static touchdown experiments between HAMR waveguide heads and non-rotating media such as a silicon wafer and a recording disk with an AlMg substrate. During the static touchdown, the laser element is energized with DC current and the embedded contact sensor (ECS) is used to monitor the head temperature. The experimental results show that the thermal fly-height control (TFC) touchdown power decreases with increasing laser current. Meanwhile, the head temperature increases due to the laser heating. From this the ECS resistance rise induced by the laser is extracted. The results show that the silicon wafer dissipates heat effectively under the laser exposure, while the AlMg-substrate disk undergoes a higher temperature rise, which in turn heats the head.

Material Transfer From Media to Head in Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR)

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is one of the leading technologies for next generation magnetic recording. Laser heating is utilized in HAMR to achieve magnetic writing of the very high coercivity media. However, the high temperature environment creates several reliability challenges for the head disk interface (HDI). Material transfer within the HDI under HAMR conditions or emulated HAMR conditions has been studied by experiments and simulations. It is found that the material transfer is mainly driven by thermal gradient and mechanical interaction such as head disk contact. In this paper, we designed an experiment to investigate the material transfer from HAMR media to a flying magnetic head. It shows that thermal gradient, more specifically a hotter media and cooler head, is the driving force for the material accumulation on the head. Furthermore, we calibrated the media temperature by a phase change material to identify the critical temperature that triggers the material transfer process. This study is important to understand the smear formation mechanism in HAMR drives.