Toshiya Shiramatsu

Drive Integration of Active Flying-Height Control Slider With Micro Thermal Actuator

To attain ultra-low flying height, we have developed a thermal flying-height control (TFC) slider that contains a micro-thermal actuator. Using the device, the magnetic spacing of these sliders can be controlled in situ during operation of the drive. A previous prototype had shown insufficient characteristics when evaluated at the component level. The purpose of this research is to develop an improved TFC slider and verify its drive-level feasibility. After designing analytically by simulation of heat transfer and thermal deformation, a prototype of the TFC device was fabricated. Component-level evaluation showed that the actuator characteristics met the requirements necessary for the development of drives with controllable flying-height sliders. Drive-level evaluations showed remarkable effectiveness in the TFC slider in reducing the magnetic spacing

Optical Measurement of Flying-Heitht Change Due to Thermal Protrusion of Magnetic Head

To achieve an ultra-low flying height in magnetic head sliders for next generation hard disk drives, we are investigating individual in-situ technique to adjust flying height using a built-in thermal actuator to compensate for flying-height deviations and variations. To resolve this lack of agreement, we optically evaluated the sliders flying height at multiple positions using flying-height tester. We predicted compensation effect by modified air bearing simulator that takes into account of thermal protrusion

Nanometer Scale Actuation Of Magnetic Head Elements in Hard Disk Drives with Built-In Microheater

Todays head/disk interface design has a wide flying height distribution due to manufacturing tolerances, environmental variations, and write-induced thermal protrusion. To reduce the magnetic spacing loss caused by these effects, we developed an active head slider with a nano-thermal actuator. The magnetic spacing of these sliders can be controlled in-situ during drive operations. After simulating the heat transfer in the slider to obtain the thermal deformation of the air-bearing surface, we fabricated a thermal actuator using thin-film processing. An evaluation done using a read/write tester showed a linear reduction in the magnetic height as electric power was applied to the actuator. The actuators stroke was 2.5 nm per 50 mW with a time constant of 1 msec.