An electrostatic micro actuator for a magnetic head tracking system of hard disk drives

We propose a new micro actuator to realize high track density of hard disk drives (HDDs). The proposed actuator is a bi-directional driving (BDD) electrostatic actuator with multiple parallel plate electrodes. The actuator generates a large force that is twice as much as the force of a conventional unidirectional driving (UDD) actuator, and it is fabricated by micro machining technologies. The driving theory is verified by experiments with a prototype. We demonstrate the capability of actuators which will achieve 40 k track per inch (TPI). The fabrication process of the actuators for 40 kTPI is under development