A method is presented for measuring the height of an air-bearing separating a
flying
component from a rotating surface using physical deformation of a small amount
of material deposited on the surface. One embodiment of the invention is a method
of measuring the fly-height of a slider using physical deformation of material
deposited on the disk. Small amounts of the deformable material such as a viscoelastic
lubricant are placed on a limited area of the disk so that the slider can otherwise
fly normally. The slider's fly-height is established over the unaltered portion
of the disk, then the slider impacts the deformable material. This process results
in the deformable material being flattened or removed above the fly-height of the
slider. The height of the remaining material is then measurable as the fly-height.
