Patent ID: 7872833

Claim:
A head comprising: a slider having a leading face and a trailing face and an air bearing surface, the air bearing surface defining an upstream direction pointing from the trailing face to the leading face; and a transducer; the slider also having an overcoat layer, the overcoat layer including the trailing face and overcoating the transducer; wherein the air bearing surface includes: a trailing pad including a major surface adjacent the transducer, the major surface lying in a primary plane; a sub-ambient pressure cavity disposed upstream of the overcoat layer and being recessed from the primary plane by a cavity depth in the range 0.8 to 2 microns; and wherein the overcoat layer includes: a trailing air flow dam being recessed from the primary plane by a step depth in the range 0.05 to 0.5 microns, and a corner region recessed from the primary plane by at least the cavity depth.