Study of Contact Bouncing Vibration of Flying Head Slider in Near-Contact Regime

We experimentally and analytically investigated detailed characteristics of the bouncing vibrations of a flying head slider in a near-contact regime. In the experiment, we found that the hysteresis of touch-down and take-off pressure and the rate of instability become small as the pitch angle increases. Moreover, we measured the 3-dimensional slider motion by using two laser Doppler vibrometers simultaneously and found that the bouncing vibration is a coupled vibration between translation and pitch with a small phase shift. These experimental features can be explained analytically if we consider strong shear force due to lubricant and small amount of microwaviness for the previous two-degrees of freedom slider model with nonlinear air bearing stiffness.