Slit Design for the Thermal Flying Height Control Slider

Thermal flying height control (TFC) has recently been implemented in magnetic recording disk drives to reduce the flying height at the read/write element for high areal density magnetic recording. In this work, we propose a novel thermal flying height control slider, by designing a slit near the thermal heater in the slider. The thermal-structure simulation coupled with air bearing simulation is used to simulate the actuation by the thermal actuator, as well as the effects on flying performance of slider being actuated.