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Investigations of Thermal Asperity Sensors

in Thermal Flying-Height Control Sliders
Chuanwei Zhang1,2 , Andrey Ovcharenko3, Min Yang3 , Neil Knutson3, and Frank E. Talke2
1 School

of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

2 Western Digital Corporation, San Jose, CA 95138 USA
3 Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093 USA
The characteristics of a thermal asperity sensor for detecting slider/disk asperity contact were investigated. A thermomechanical
finite element model was used to determine the temperature change of the thermal asperity sensor while sliding against a disk
asperity. The effect of sensor size and operational temperature, disk asperity material properties, and contact conditions were
investigated.
Index Terms Slider/disk asperity contact, temperature change, thermal asperity sensors.

I. I NTRODUCTION

HE flying height of thermal flying-height control (TFC)

sliders is presently on the order of 1 nm [1]. At this
small spacing, slider/disk asperity contacts are likely to occur,
and management of thermal asperities is an important task to
design a reliable head disk interface.
Disk asperities sliding against the slider are generally
described as thermal asperities [2]. High interfacial temperature can be caused by localized frictional heating during
contact between the disk asperities and the slider. In the last
few years, a thermal asperity sensor with high sensitivity to
temperature changes has been used for slider/disk contact
detection and defect mapping [3][5]. Shimizu et al. [3]
experimentally studied the touchdown sensitivity of a thermal asperity sensor and the detection of nanometer-scale
defects on disk surfaces. They showed that the sensitivity
of a thermal asperity sensor for the detection of slider/disk
contacts is similar to that of conventional acoustic emission
sensors [3]. In particular, they found that thermal asperity sensors could detect small defects on the disk surface that could
not be observed in a conventional glide test [6]. Li et al. [4]
numerically studied the temperature response of a thermal
asperity sensor to frictional heating and observed that a sensor
with a width of less than 1 m was sensitive enough to detect
slider/disk contacts. Liu et al. [5] analyzed the sensitivity of a
thermal asperity sensor during its contact with a disk asperity.
They concluded that the contact point between a slider and
a disk asperity should be as close as possible to the thermal
asperity sensor to maximize signal output.
In this paper, the sensitivity of a thermal asperity sensor for
the detection of asperity contacts is examined as a function of
the size and the operational temperature of the thermal asperity
sensor. In addition, the material properties and the position of
a disk asperity during contact are investigated.

Manuscript received March 6, 2014; revised April 28, 2014;

accepted April 29, 2014. Corresponding author: C. Zhang (e-mail:
tranvey@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2014.2321558

Fig. 1. Schematic of a disk asperity sliding against a thermal asperity sensor

in a TFC slider.

II. M ODELING AND M ATERIALS

Fig. 1 shows a schematic view of a disk asperity sliding
against a thermal asperity sensor in a TFC slider. The disk
asperity is modeled as a spherical cap with a radius of RTA =
2.0 m on a cylinder with a diameter of DTA = 300 nm.
The asperity height is chosen to be HTA = 10 nm. The
interference between the thermal protrusion of the slider and
the disk asperity is defined to be = 8 nm. The thermal
asperity sensor is modeled as a thin strip of thickness of
WTAS = 60 nm and height HTAS = 150 nm. The length
of the sensor is denoted as L TAS . In this paper, L TAS is
chosen between 0.5 nd 10 m. The thermal protrusion on
the TFC slider is assumed to be a spherical cap with a radius
of RTP = 5 mm [1], [7]. The circumferential velocity of the
disk is V = 20 m/s.
In this paper, a thermo-elastic-plastic material model
described in [8] is used, and the materials are assumed to be
temperature independent. Table I lists the material parameters
used in the model. The material of the thermal asperity sensor
and the read shields is NiFe. The material of the slider on
which the read element is deposited is Al2 O1#
3 . The material
of the disk is NiP. Asperities of NiP and Al2 O2#
3 are simu-

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TABLE I
M ATERIAL P ROPERTIES

Fig. 2. FE model of a disk asperity sliding against a thermal asperity sensor

in a TFC slider protrusion.

lated, together with polyoxymethylene (POM) contamination

particles.
In Fig. 2, the schematic of the finite element model of a
disk asperity sliding against a thermal asperity sensor in a
TFC slider protrusion is shown. A local region of the slider
with a length of 7.0 m near the thermal asperity sensor
and a local region of the disk with the size of 1 m
1 m 1 m are considered. The thickness of the two
read shields is lumped into one representative read shield of
1.5 m in thickness. The distance between the read shield and
the thermal asperity sensor is 350 nm. The lateral dimensions
2#
of the Al2 O1#
3 and Al2 O3 regions are chosen to be 4.0 m
and 1.5 m, respectively. We assume an initial temperature of
300 K for the disk and the asperity and a temperature of 315 K
for the slider and the thermal asperity sensor. In the model, the
nodes in the yz-plane are restrained in the x-direction because
of symmetry. The bottom surface of the disk was restrained
from motion in both the x and z directions. The top surface
of the slider was fixed.
The thermal response of the thermal asperity sensor while
sliding against a disk asperity was simulated using the commercially available finite element software LS-DYNA [8].
Explicit time integration was used to solve the momentum
equation, and a backward integration scheme was used for
calculating the thermal equilibrium. The dissipated thermal
energy during slider/disk asperity contact was assumed to
be equal to the frictional energy, i.e., thermal energy due
to plastic deformation is neglected. Opposing nodes at the
slider/disk asperity contact region are assumed to have the
same temperature to fulfill the Blok postulate [9].
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
Fig. 3(a) shows the temperature distribution of the thermal asperity sensor during contact with an Al2 O2#
3 asperity,
assuming a friction coefficient of = 0.3, a disk velocity

Fig. 3. (a) Temperature distribution and (b) average temperature history of the
thermal asperity sensor during contact with an alumina asperity (V = 20 m/s,
= 8 nm, = 0.3, and L TAS = 2 m).

Fig. 4. Average temperature of thermal asperity sensor as a function of

asperity material (V = 20 m/s, = 8 nm, = 0.5, and L TAS = 1.5 m).

of V = 20 m/s, an interference of = 8 nm, and a sensor

length of L TAS = 2 m. The temperature on the opposing
nodes at the center of the slider and the disk asperity is the
same, i.e., 423 K. Fig. 3(b) shows the average temperature of
the thermal asperity sensor as the disk asperity slides against
the sensor. The average temperature of the thermal asperity
sensor is calculated by averaging the value of temperature
for all sensor nodes. Clearly, frictional heat generated during
sensor/disk asperity contact increases the temperature of the
thermal asperity sensor. The average temperature change T
of the sensor reaches a maximum value of T = 18 K as the
disk asperity passes the sensor. As the asperity moves away,
the temperature rise T of the sensor decays.
Fig. 4 shows the average temperature change of the sensor
as a function of asperity material properties, assuming a
friction coefficient of = 0.5, a disk velocity of V =
20 m/s, an interference of = 8 nm, and a sensor length of
L TAS = 1.5 m. We observe that the maximum temperature

ZHANG et al.: THERMAL ASPERITY SENSORS IN TFC SLIDERS

Fig. 5. Flash temperature during sliding contact of an asperity on a slider

as a function of heat conductivity of the asperity k1 (heat conductivity of the
slider k2 = 35 Wm1 K1 ).

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Fig. 6. Maximum average temperature change of the sensor as a function of

the operational temperature of the sensor (V = 20 m/s, = 0.3, = 8 nm).

change T of the sensor caused by an Al2 O2#

3 asperity, a NiP
asperity and a POM asperity is 39, 35, and 7 K, respectively.
The contact force between the sensor and the Al2 O2#
3 asperity,
the NiP asperity and the POM asperity are 68.5, 46.5, and
22.0 mN, respectively. The contact force between the sensor
and the asperities depends on the elastic-plastic properties of
the asperity materials under the same contact conditions.
As shown in [10], the flash temperature during sliding
contact of an asperity on a slider surface can be estimated
as


Fv k1 k2 1
+
(1)
T f = Tb +
Ar
l1
l2
where Tb is the bulk temperature; is the frictional coefficient;
F is the normal force acting on the sliding surfaces; v is the
sliding velocity; Ar is the real contact area; k1 and k2 are
the thermal heat conductivities of the asperity and the slider
material, respectively; and l1f and l2f are equivalent linear heat
diffusion distances for the asperity and the slider material,
respectively.
From (1), we observe that a decrease in the thermal
conductivity of the asperity (Fig. 5) and an increase in the
contact force cause an increase in the flash temperature of the
slider/asperity interface. We conclude that a thermal asperity
sensor has a higher sensitivity for asperity detection if its
thermal heat conductivity is low assuming the rest of the
thermomechanical material properties to be the same.
Fig. 6 shows the maximum average temperature change of
the sensor in contact with an alumina asperity as a function
of the sensor bias temperature, assuming a friction coefficient
of = 0.3, a disk velocity of V = 20 m/s, an interference of
= 8 nm, and a sensor length of L TAS = 1 m, respectively.
We observe that the maximum average temperature change of
the sensor decreases nearly linearly with an increase in the
operational temperature of the sensor.
We assume that the temperature on opposing nodes at
the slider disk asperity contact region is the same. The
division of the frictional thermal energy into the slider and
the disk asperity is a function of the material properties and
the relative temperature distribution in the slider and disk.

Fig. 7. Maximum average temperature change of the sensor as a function

of the sensor length (V = 20 m/s, = 0.3, = 8 nm, alumina asperity).

If the operational temperature of the sensor is increased,

the temperature difference between the disk asperity and the
sensor decreases. As a result, the frictional heat conducted to
the sensor decreases. This causes a decrease of the average
temperature change of the sensor.
We conclude that a thermal asperity sensor operating at
a low temperature compared with the temperature of the
asperity/slider contact temperature is well suited for detecting
slider/disk asperity contacts. If the operational temperature of
the sensor is increased, the sensitivity of the thermal asperity
sensor is decreased.
The thermal response of a contact sensor operating at
high temperature is a function of the relative asperity contact
temperature. In particular, extrapolating the results from Fig. 6
for higher operational temperatures than those shown in Fig. 6,
one can predict that the average temperature change of the
sensor will become zero and even negative, i.e., the sliding
asperity will have a cooling effect on the thermal sensor [7].
Fig. 7 shows the maximum average temperature change of
the thermal asperity sensor while sliding against an Al2 O2#
3
asperity as a function of the length of the sensor L TAS ,
assuming a friction coefficient of = 0.3, a disk velocity
of V = 20 m/s, an interference of = 8 nm, and a

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most desirable sensor length for detecting slider/disk asperity

contacts is approximately 1 to 2 m.
IV. C ONCLUSION

Fig. 8. (a) Schematic of the off track of an asperity and (b) off-track effect
of an alumina asperity on the maximum average temperature change of the
sensor (Vx = 20 m/s, = 8 nm, = 0.3, and L TAS = 10 m).

sensor operational temperature of 315 K. We observe that

the maximum average temperature change of the sensor with
a length of L TAS = 0.5 m is approximately 57 K. The
maximum average temperature change of the sensor decreases
to 17 and 4 K, respectively, if the length of the sensor increases
to 2 and 10 m, respectively. Thus, a short thermal asperity
sensor (with a length of less than 2 m) is well suited for
detecting slider/disk asperity contacts. The sensitivity of a
thermal asperity sensor increases rapidly, by a factor of 3,
if the length of the sensor is reduced from 2 m to 0.5 m.
Fig. 8 studies the effect of the asperity-sensor off-track
position on the maximum average temperature change of the
sensor, assuming a friction coefficient of = 0.3, a disk
velocity of V = 20 m/s, an interference of = 8 nm, and
a sensor length of L TAS = 10 m. As shown in Fig. 8(a), the
off-track position of the asperity is defined as the distance
between the center of the asperity and the center of the
thermal asperity sensor. We observe that the maximum average
temperature of the sensor changes little when the asperity
slides against the center or near the center. However, if the
asperity makes contact with the sensor far away from the
center of the sensor, the maximum average temperature change
of the sensor decreases. This effect is related to the change in
frictional heat conducted to the sensor and the slider.
Clearly, to design a sensor with high sensitivity, the length
of the sensor must be chosen judiciously, on the same order
of length as the diameter of the asperity to be investigated.
Thus, a small sensor length can improve the sensor sensitivity
for the detection of slider/disk asperity contacts, but a longer
sensor has a higher probability for making contact with a disk
asperity. Considering both situations, we conclude that the

The temperature change of a thermal asperity sensor due

to the slider/disk asperity contact was simulated using a
thermomechanical finite element model. The results show that:
1) a thermal asperity sensor has a higher sensitivity to
detect disk asperities with low thermal conductivity and
high hardness;
2) a sensor with low operational temperature is well suited
for detecting slider/disk asperity contacts. The sensitivity
of a thermal asperity sensor decreases with an increase
in the operational temperature of the sensor;
3) a sensor with a length of less than 2 m was found to
have high sensitivity for detecting slider/disk asperity
contacts. The sensitivity of the thermal asperity sensor increases rapidly if the sensor length decreases to
0.5 m. Considering off-track effects of disk asperities,
we conclude that the optimal sensor length for detecting
slider/disk asperity contacts is approximately 12 m.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. R. Lo and Dr. D. Fowler
from Western Digital Corporation for helpful discussions
and suggestions with this paper. C. Zhang thanks the China
Scholarship Council (CSC) and Prof. L. Gu from Harbin
Institute of Technology for supporting his Ph.D. studies
at UCSD.
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