A Novel Active-Head Slider With a Shear-Mode PZT Actuator and Dual Thermal Actuator

The active-head slider technology has recently been implemented in magnetic recording disk drives to reduce the flying height at the read/write element. The two typical actuators to drive an active-head slider are thermal actuator and piezoelectric actuator. This work proposes a novel `TFC-TPC' active-head slider actuated by a piezoelectric actuator and dual thermal actuator. The electromechanical simulation and thermal-structure simulation coupled with air bearing simulation are used to simulate the actuation by the piezoelectric actuator and dual thermal actuator, as well as the effects on flying performance of slider being actuated. The simulation results show that the proposed slider design can take full advantages of piezoelectric actuator and dual thermal actuator, to obtain a fast and flexible control of flying height of slider in hard disk drive.