A MEMS-based monolithic electrostatic microactuator for ultra-low magnetic disk head fly height control

Author

Chen, Fang ; Xie, Huikai ; Fedder, Gary K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

37

Issue

4

fYear

2001

fDate

7/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1915

Lastpage

1918

Abstract

A novel MEMS-based electrostatic actuator design is proposed for recording head fly height control below 10 nm. Different from prior work on MEMS-based electrostatic microactuators designed for magnetic hard disk drives (HDD), the proposed microactuator is fabricated monolithically with a conventional head/slider design. The actuator is micromachined into the same side as the head element on a slider with a modified CMOS-MEMS process. It has an extremely small size, light weight and a very simple structure. The head is suspended and actuated up and down by the actuator during recording process to maintain a constant fly height. A desired range and precision of actuation is achieved under control voltages of less than 30 V. A mechanical resonant frequency of over 100 kHz is obtained

Keywords

disc drives; electrostatic actuators; hard discs; magnetic heads; spatial variables control; 0 to 10 nm; MEMS-based monolithic electrostatic microactuator; constant fly height; control voltages; hard disk drives; head fly height control; head/slider design; mechanical resonant frequency; modified CMOS-MEMS process; ultra-low magnetic disk; Contacts; Disk recording; Electrostatic actuators; Hard disks; Magnetic heads; Magnetic recording; Microactuators; Micromechanical devices; Resonant frequency; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.951007

Filename

951007