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The primary goal of this research was to study the feasibility of a thermal micro actuator for improved tracking performance of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and the feasibility of thermal actuation for precision micro motion and positioning in general. The fast dynamics of the micro actuator allows it to quickly correct position errors and thus improve the tracking accuracy. The improved accuracy is required to reduce the track width of future drives. With these narrower tracks, the HDD industry can maintain their competitive advantage over “flash” based solid state drives, which are currently 4 to 10 times more expensive but are rapidly decreasing in price. Thermal actuation is proposed because thermal actuators can produce a large force with a reasonable displacement and are often of simple construction. Also, they do not require special materials and high driving voltages, unlike piezoelectric actuators. In this work, it was investigated how thermal micro actuators can achieve a sufficiently high bandwidth for precision motion and positioning applications, and how to design, fabricate, and control thermally actuated nanopositioners., Precision and Microsystems Engineering, Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

The primary goal of this research was to study the feasibility of a thermal micro actuator for improved tracking performance of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and the feasibility of thermal actuation for precision micro motion and positioning in general. The fast dynamics of the micro actuator allows it to quickly correct position errors and thus improve the tracking accuracy. The improved accuracy is required to reduce the track width of future drives. With these narrower tracks, the HDD industry can maintain their competitive advantage over “flash” based solid state drives, which are currently 4 to 10 times more expensive but are rapidly decreasing in price. Thermal actuation is proposed because thermal actuators can produce a large force with a reasonable displacement and are often of simple construction. Also, they do not require special materials and high driving voltages, unlike piezoelectric actuators. In this work, it was investigated how thermal micro actuators can achieve a sufficiently high bandwidth for precision motion and positioning applications, and how to design, fabricate, and control thermally actuated nanopositioners., Precision and Microsystems Engineering, Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering