A negative pressure air bearing slider includes a pair of front rails having a predetermined air inlet passage interposed therebetween at the front side of the slider where air enters, a negative pressure rail disposed at the rear of the front rails and forming air outlet passages connected to the air inlet passage, and forming a negative pressure space where negative pressure is generated according to the flow of air at the rear thereof, and a rear rail disposed at the rear of the negative pressure space, where a magnetic head is installed. In the slider, a stepped portion protruding toward the air outlet passages is formed at the negative pressure rail.

A magnetic head slider of the present invention includes a generally C-shaped leading rail extending from the leading edge of an air bearing surface and concave toward the trailing edge of the same. A pair of trailing rails extend from substantially the center of the concavity of "C" of the leading rail and flared away from each other toward the trailing edge. The trailing rails are spaced by a preselected distance from each other in the vicinity of the concavity of the trailing rail, then extend toward the trailing edge while bending away from each other, and then respectively extend toward the right and left ends of the trailing edge while sequentially increasing in width. Vacuum to be generated is controlled on the basis of the above distance and the bending angle of the trailing rails.

An air bearing surface for use on a magnetic read/write head. The air bearing surface provides a stable flight profile while exhibiting exception load/unload characteristics through the use of a plurality of pads providing high pressure areas as well as a central cavity providing a sub-ambient pressure to counter the high pressure areas. The channel is set a predetermined distance from the leading edge of the air bearing, the predetermined distance being greater than with prior art designs. A channel extends from the leading edge to the cavity to allow airflow into the cavity. The channel and the set back of the cavity both act in conjunction to facilitate unloading of the air bearing by preventing excessive sub ambient pressures.

A slider which utilizes a set of four pads arranged in a generally rectangular form. The two pads on the leading edge of the slider each include an angled face on their leading edge to facilitate the lift-off of the slider. Behind each leading edge pad is a trailing pad of substantially the same width and separated from the leading pad by a cross-cut channel. The pressure relief provided by the open cross-slot that separates the front and rear pads of each rail of the slider significantly reduces the sensitivity of air bearing pressure to the shape of the disc surface, leading to a very small fly height modulation even when moving over a disc with substantial runout. The rails are separated by a cross-cut. This cross-cut design substantially diminishes the effect of pressure variations which occur owing to the peaks and valleys which exist on discs, especially plastic discs as the slider flies over the surface of the disc.

A slider air bearing design and method providing "writing of laser field" (WOLF) measurement without substantial fly height affect. A central pad at ion-mill height is formed in the cavity between the side rails and rear pad. The central pad allows correlation of WOLF crown measurement values with crown measurements obtain via optical interferometer. Also, the central pad provides good reflective areas while preventing degradation in fly height performance due to the rear pad geometry constraints required by the WOLF measurement process.