Thermo-resistive flight attitude measurements of flying heads in near field magneto-optical data storage

A thermo-resistive test head that uses thermo-resistors embedded in the air bearing surface (ABS) was created. Joule heating by the sensing current generates a heat flow across the head-disk spacing which highly depends on the distance between ABS and disk. Due to the thermal sensors located on each of the four corners of a slider, pitch, roll, and flying height variations may be measured.