Experimental Study of Material Pick Up on Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) Heads

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is on the magnetic recording industry’s roadmap of next generation recording technology. The high temperature writing condition creates several reliability challenges for the head disk interface (HDI). Material buildup, or so-called smear, that accumulates between the head and the media is one key challenge. Our previous studies found that the material transfer is mainly driven by the high temperature and mechanical interaction between the head and media. In this paper, we systematically studied the role of the media in the smear formation and transfer process. We identified at least two different types of smear and the critical temperatures for their formation and transfer. Furthermore, we found that optimizing the media process, particularly the magnetic layer and lubricant, could help to reduce smear. This study helps in understanding the smear formation mechanism and explores methods to mitigate smear for HAMR drives.