Output Characteristics of a Thin-Film Piezoelectric AE Sensor for Magnetic Head-Disk Interaction

Abstract

A new type of acoustic emission(AE)sensor was developed for detecting head-disk interaction in magnetic disk devices. In order to develop a small sensor, we used a thin-film piezoelectric material and mounted it on the Si slider using micromachining techniques. We conducted a basic experiment and a simulation of sensor output, and confirmed that the simulation used here can predict sensor output characteristics. This paper describes the structure of the sensor and the method of simulation. We also performed several other simulations of sensor output characteristics using this method, and confirmed that the new sensor is applicable to tribological research on head-disk interaction.