Air bearing surface features for optimized transducer spacing

摘要

A shallow etch (150) at the trailing edge rail of a transducer slider (100) that allows the slider to fly closer to the recording medium and exhibit less sensitivity to roll. The slider includes a support structure (126) and at least one rail (124) having side edges and an air bearing surface raised above the support structure. At least one of the rails includes a magnetic element (128) disposed on the support structure. The edges of the rail adjacent to the magnetic element are etched to minimize the fly height of the magnetic element over the disk while preventing collision of the rail with the disk during roll conditions. The etched features of the rail create relieved trailing edge portions (150) where the edges of the rail adjacent to the magnetic element are lower than the air bearing surface but are higher than the support structure. The shallow etch in the air bearing surface minimizes the difference between the minimum mechanical slider/disk spacing and the magnetic head/disk spacing which in turn allows optimization of transducer spacing. The edges of the air bearing surface adjacent the magnetic element are shortened by reactive ion etching or ion milling.