An active-head slider with a piezoelectric actuator for controlling flying height

Summary form only given. An extra margin is currently required in designing the flying height (h/sub f/) of hard disk drives. This is to allow for manufacturing tolerances and environmental variations, since even a slider at the lowest possible h/sub f/ must not come into contact with the disk. An active-head slider carries a micro-actuator and is able to control the flying height of the read/write head to some desired value. Our purpose is to develop an active-head slider that is easy to fabricate and includes a large-stroke actuator.