Air Bearing Surface Designs for Less Humidity Sensitivity

A slider in a hard disk drive lose its flying height (FH) in a humid environment, which is mainly caused by the vapor condensation and consequently the pressure drop in the air bearing. Since the FH loss is closely related to the air bearing surface (ABS) design, therefore it is possible to optimize an ABS so to reduce slider's FH sensitivity to the humidity change in the environment. In this paper, we study the humidity sensitivity in regards to the ABS designs and introduce the approaches of optimizing ABS for less humidity sensitivity. The results indicate that to increase air bearing stiffness through ABS optimization is effective in reducing the humidity sensitivity. In particularly, an optimized ABS can reduce humidity sensitivity 30% more than those not optimized.