Apparatus and method of configuring the air bearing surfaces of sliders in disk drives for producing high temperatures in thermally-assisted recordings

A slider, comprising:

• a base having an x-axis, a y-axis, a z-axis, a trailing end, and a surface in an x-y-plane, and each of the axes defining x, y, and z-directions, respectively;
• an air bearing formed on the surface of the base;
• a formation in the air bearing, the formation having a height in the z-direction, a hole located in the formation and extending toward the surface of the base at a depth in the z-direction;
• a head for reading and writing data, the head being mounted in the formation adjacent to the hole in the formation;
• and
• the hole has a plurality of sides extending in the z-direction and is walled off such that the hole is surrounded on all of the plurality of sides by the formation.

A data recording device, comprising in combination:

• a housing having a disk mounted and rotatable thereto, and an actuator mounted to and pivotable relative to the housing and the disk, and a slider mounted to the actuator, the slider having a head for reading data from and writing data to the disk;
• the slider further comprising:
• a base having an x-axis, a y-axis, a z-axis, a trailing end, and a surface in an x-y-plane, and each of the axes defining x, y, and z-directions, respectively;
• an air bearing formed on the surface of the base, the air bearing having a plurality of air bearing pads;
• a formation in the air bearing located on one of the air bearing pads adjacent to the trailing end of the base, the formation having a first feature with a first height in the z-direction, a second feature on the first feature and having a second height in the z-direction that is greater than the first height, and a blind hole located in the second feature and having a depth in the z-direction defined by a bottom, a plurality of sides extending in the z-direction such that the blind hole is surrounded on all of the plurality of sides by the second feature;
• and
• the head is mounted in the second feature of the formation adjacent to the blind hole.