Today's 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 airbearing 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 actuator's stroke was 2.5 nm per 50 mW with a time constant of 1 ms. There was no significant impact on the reliability of the read element.
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