Investigation of temperature rise in GMR sensor and disk induced by laser irradiation

Abstract Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) has been proposed to be an approach for high-density recording. In this work, we investigate the temperature changes in giant magneto resistive (GMR) read sensor and locally heated magnetic disk induced by laser irradiation. Experimental result shows that the air flow plays an important role in cooling read sensor in non-heat assisted writing operation. The temperature of the read sensor increases with the increase in flying height of the slider. In heat assisted writing application, the heat is transferred from the locally heated magnetic medium to the slider through air bearing. Such information should be considered in future integrative head structure design, medium heating/cooling structure design and surface material study to build reliable head–disk interface.