A Novel in Situ Monitoring Method for Head/Media Contact

A new method to detect magnetic recording head/media contact point is introduced in this paper. By comparing it with a common method using an acoustic emission sensor, the new method is simple, but yet still effective enough to control fly high or clearance between head and disk so as to improve the performance of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) at ultra-high density. The method can be easily implemented on head/disk spin-stand testers or in hard disk drives