Abstract
This paper describes the development of novel PZT thin films for active sliders in hard disk drives. The feature is that sol-get PZT thin films are deposited on sputtered PZT thin films fabricated on Pt/Ti bottom electrode. These double-layered composite PZT thin films are found to have the higher (111) preferred orientation as well as better P-E hysteresis loop characteristics than not only sol-get PZT thin films but also sputtered PZT thin films. The piezoelectric strain constant d_<31> for the novel PZT thin films is also investigated and identified to be 189×(10)^<-12>m/V. This value is 2.0 times higher than that for conventional PZT thin films and it is found that the novel PZT thin films have good piezoelectric properties. Furthermore, micro-machining process for the proposed active slider is studied and developed. There are, however, some issues caused by the 100μm deep-etching process by ICP-RIE in the developed fabrication process. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the process issues in detail and improve the fabrication process in the future.
