A suspension assembly for supporting a read/write head/slider assembly adjacent to a rotating storage disk with dynamically adjustable flying height for use within a hard disk drive is provided. The suspension assembly includes a generally elongated loadbeam that has a baseplate defined at a first end thereof and a gimbaled flexure portion defined at a second end thereof. The flexure portion includes a pair of flexure legs and a flexure tongue. The pair of flexure legs extend from the flexure tongue and each leg attaches to an opposite side of the loadbeam. The flexure tongue generally provides a mounting surface for the read/write head/slider assembly. Strips of thermal-expansion material are attached to the flexure portion. These strips are connected to a power source via a power conductor. When the strips are energized, they expand and deform a portion of the flexure portion. This deformation of the flexure portion is transposed to the read/write head/slider assembly for dynamically adjusting the flying height thereof.
A head support mechanism includes a suspension for supporting a magnetic head slider with a thin-film magnetic head, having a slider mounting section on which the magnetic head slider is fixed, and a heating unit formed on the slider mounting section of the suspension. The heating unit is capable of producing heat.
A head gimbal assembly having a suspension and a read/write head is provided. The read write head is attached to a flexure tongue of the suspension. Heating elements on arms of the suspension, set on either side of the suspension tongue, are used to alter flight characteristics of the read/write read such as pitch and roll. Due to differences in the coefficients of thermal expansion of the materials that comprise the arms, the arms bend when heated. Varying the heat output of the heating elements changes the temperatures of the arms, which changes the degree to which the arms are bent. The heating elements can be portions of traces in a trace layer. Control circuitry is provided to control the heating of the heating elements to maintain desired values of the flight characteristics.
A microactuating suspension assembly used for a disc drive is disclosed. The microactuating suspension assembly has a suspension load beam and a microactuator placed on the suspension load beam for bending the suspension load beam at the front end thereof during a sustained period of data read/write time and thus achieving a desired average fly-height which is different from an unaltered average fly-height which would have been achieved without the microactuator. In particular, the microactuating suspension assembly can be used to achieve a very low fly-height. Additionally, very large bandwidth and very short seeking time is made possible when a bimorph piezoelectric microactuator is used.
A method and system control the flight height of a transducer element of a slider mechanism operating in association with a storage disk. The invention adjusts the flight height of transducer element to a first flight height using an electromechanical control mechanism. The flight height of transducer element then achieves a second flight height using a thermal control mechanism. The thermal control mechanism is associated with a thermally responsive portion of transducer element. By heating the thermally responsive portion, a portion of transducer element becomes sufficiently proximate to the storage disk for the transducer element to respond to physical forces arising from electrostatic induction between transducer element and the storage disk. Flight height adjustment of transducer element from the second flight height to a third flight height may then occur using an electrostatic control mechanism which generates a physical force through electrostatic induction.
An apparatus and method for utilizing an off-center gimbal to increase head to disk interface reliability for contact recording systems. The method provides a suspension for reaching over a disk. A slider having a read/write head element on a trailing edge (TE) portion is also provided, the slider coupled with the suspension. In addition, an off-center gimbal device is coupled with the slider and the suspension away from the center of the slider and closer to the TE portion of the slider such that when the TE portion of the slider contacts a disk a bouncing motion of the TE with respect to the disk is reduced.
