Abstract

A flying head using the switching characteristics of an optically switched laser diode is shown to have an excellent read/write performance and head-disk interface. This head consists of an aluminum nitride slider and a 1.3-μm wavelength InGaAsP laser diode monolithically integrated with a photodetector (LD–PD). A ridged waveguide is fabricated on top of the LD facet to converge the light beam. The lensless flying head has a minimum power of 18 mW for writing information (at 1 MHz) at a medium velocity of 7 m/s. The disk has a SiN protective layer over a SbTeGe phase-change recording medium. The head signal remains good after more than 5 × 10⁴ contact start/stop cycles and 4.4 × 10⁸ passes in an experimental room environment.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

Supersmall flying optical head for phase change recording media

Hiroo Ukita, Yoshitada Katagiri, and Susumu Fujimori
Appl. Opt. 28(20) 4360-4365 (1989)

Determining the optical constants of read-write sliders during flying-height testing

Peter de Groot, Ara Dergevorkian, Tod Erickson, and Russell Pavlat
Appl. Opt. 37(22) 5116-5125 (1998)

Magneto-optical disk drive technology using multiple fiber-coupled flying optical heads. part I. System design and performance

Jeffrey P. Wilde, John F. Heanue, Alexander A. Tselikov, and Jerry E. Hurst
Appl. Opt. 40(5) 691-706 (2001)

Acousto-optic parallel read/write head for optical disk data storage

Robert R. McLeod and Sarah K. Walter
Appl. Opt. 45(27) 7065-7072 (2006)

Polarization interferometer for measuring the flying height of magnetic read–write heads

Peter de Groot, Leslie Deck, James Soobitsky, and James Biegen
Opt. Lett. 21(6) 441-443 (1996)