The trend to lower fly heights, smoother disks, higher rotation speeds, and glass substrates will have considerable impact on the tribology of the head-disk interface in future disk drives. The use of smoother disks has increased stiction. New disk textures and slider air bearing surfaces have been developed to alleviate these stiction problems. The high speeds and low fly heights will aggravate wear.
Lubricant selection is important as it reduces wear and can help prevent stiction problems.
A molecular level understanding of lubrication is extremely valuable not only for solving problems related to lubrication, but also for dealing with other complex tribology interactions occurring at the head-disk interface. Modern techniques for characterization of magnetic head and disk surfaces. How choice of substrate material and processing affects the tribology of the head-disk interface. Load-Unload G etting around stiction problems by dynamically loading and unloading heads from disks.