Suspension having a stacked D33 mode PZT actuator with constraint layer

Abstract

A microactuator for a dual stage actuated suspension for a hard disk drive is constructed as a longitudinal stack of piezoelectric (PZT) elements acting in the d33 mode, expanding or contracting longitudinally when an electric field is applied across them in the longitudinal direction. The microactuator has interlaced electrode fingers that separate and define the individual PZT elements, and apply the electric field. A stiff constraint layer having a high Young's modulus is affixed to the microactuator on the side opposite the suspension to which the microactuator is bonded. The constraint layer may be a layer of substantially inactive PZT material that is formed integrally with the PZT elements but without electrodes in the inactive PZT layer. The presence of the stiff constraint layer increases the effective stroke length of the microactuator.

Claims

1. A dual stage actuated suspension, the suspension having a piezoelectric (PZT) actuator, the PZT actuator comprising: a PZT layer; a first electrode having a plurality of first electrode fingers extending into the PZT layer; a second electrode having a plurality of second electrode fingers extending into the PZT layer; the first electrode fingers and the second electrode fingers being interlaced to define a plurality of interlacing fingers, the interlacing fingers defining a plurality of PZT elements within the PZT layer and between the interlacing fingers, the PZT elements being successively located in a longitudinal direction; the PZT elements being poled such that when a voltage is applied across the first and second electrodes, the PZT elements expand or contract in the longitudinal direction; and a stiff constraint layer located on a top side of the PZT actuator away from an opposite bottom side of the PZT actuator at which the PZT actuator is bonded to the suspension, the constraint layer tending to oppose expansion or contraction of the PZT elements.

2. The suspension of claim 1 wherein the constraint layer comprises a material having a Young's modulus of >50 GPa.

3. The suspension of claim 2 wherein the constraint layer is adhered to the PZT elements.

4. The suspension of claim 1 wherein the constraint layer comprises inactive PZT material.

5. The suspension of claim 1 wherein the constraint layer comprises inactive PZT material that is formed integrally with and above the PZT elements.

6. The suspension of claim 1 wherein the constraint layer comprises PZT material that has no electrodes for inducing a significant electric field therein.

7. The suspension of claim 1 further comprising an insulating layer on the bottom side of the PZT actuator, the insulating layer covering a bottom side of most of said interlacing fingers but leaving a portion of the first electrode and a portion of the second electrode electrically accessible from the bottom side.

8. A dual stage actuated suspension, the suspension having a piezoelectric (PZT) actuator, the PZT actuator comprising: a plurality of PZT elements; first and second electrodes defining a plurality of interlacing fingers, the fingers extending between individual ones of the PZT elements; the PZT elements being poled and arranged such that when a voltage is applied across the first and second electrodes individual ones of the PZT elements between the interlacing fingers expand or contract in their d33 mode, said expanding or contracting adding serially such that an overall expansion or contraction of the PZT actuator generally equals a cumulative expansion or contraction of the individual ones of the PZT elements; and a stiff constraint layer located on a top side of the PZT actuator away from an opposite bottom side of the PZT actuator at which the PZT actuator is affixed to the suspension, the constraint layer tending to oppose the overall expansion or contraction of the PZT actuator and thus to increase an effective stroke length of the PZT actuator as compared to if the PZT actuator lacked the constraint layer.

9. The suspension of claim 8 wherein the stiff constraint layer comprises substantially inactive PZT material.

10. The suspension of claim 9 wherein the inactive PZT material of the constraint layer was formed integrally with the individual PZT elements.

11. The suspension of claim 9 wherein the inactive PZT material of the constraint layer was formed by applying PZT material in fluid form over the interlacing fingers and thereafter hardened.

12. The suspension of claim 9 wherein said expansion or contraction occurs in a longitudinal direction, and the interlacing fingers do not extend vertically into the substantially inactive PZT material.

13. A dual stage actuated suspension, the suspension having a piezoelectric (PZT) actuator, the PZT actuator comprising: a first section of PZT material; a second section of PZT material on the first section of PZT material and affixed thereto; and first and second electrodes, each of the electrodes having fingers that extend laterally into the first section of PZT material, the portions of PZT material within the first section and between fingers that are adjacent in a longitudinal direction defining individual PZT elements; wherein: the PZT elements within the first section are poled such that when an activation voltage is applied across the first and second electrodes electric fields in the longitudinal direction are applied across the PZT elements causing the PZT elements to expand or contract in the longitudinal direction, and such that the overall first section of PZT material expands or contracts in the longitudinal direction; and when the activation voltage is applied across the first and second electrodes, the second section of PZT material acts differently than the first section of PZT material thus tending to oppose the expansion or contraction of the first section of PZT material.

14. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the second section of PZT material is formed integrally with the first section of PZT material and above the electrode fingers.

15. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the second section of PZT material is substantially unpoled PZT material.

16. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the second section of PZT material has no electrode fingers extending laterally therein.

17. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the second section of PZT material has fewer electrode fingers extending laterally therein than the first section.

18. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the second section of PZT material has electrode fingers extending therein that are shorter than the electrode fingers extending into the first section.

19. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the electrode fingers in the first section of PZT material have an average vertical height, the second section of PZT material has no electrode fingers therein, and the second section of PZT material has a thickness that is at least as great as said average vertical height of the electrode fingers in the first section of PZT material.

20. The suspension of claim 13 wherein the electrode fingers extend vertically through the first section of PZT material but do not extend vertically through the second section of PZT material.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is top plan view of a prior art DSA suspension.

(2) FIG. 2 is a side perspective view of a stacked d33 mode PZT with constraint layer according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

(3) FIG. 3 is a side sectional view of the PZT actuator 50 of FIG. 2 taken along section line 3-3.

(4) FIG. 4 is a top plan view of two of the PZTs of FIG. 2 mounted to a disk drive suspension.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

(5) FIG. 2 is a side perspective view of a d33 mode PZT actuator 50 having a constraint layer 80 in an exemplary embodiment of the invention. PZT actuator 50 includes a first PZT material layer or section 52. The first PZT material layer extends in a generally longitudinal direction L. A first or positive electrode 60 includes a side wall 61 from which a plurality of first or positive electrode fingers 62 extend laterally into the PZT layer 52, and an end wall 63. Similarly, a second or negative electrode 70 includes a side wall 71 from which a plurality of second or negative electrode fingers 72 extend laterally into PZT layer 52, and an end wall 73. The first and second electrode fingers 62, 72 define a plurality of interlacing or interdigitated electrode fingers extending laterally into the PZT layer 52, with the fingers 62 of the first electrode 60 being connected by the first longitudinally extending side wall connector 61, and the fingers 72 of the second electrode 70 being connected by a second longitudinally extending side wall connector 71. Similarly structured electrodes are sometimes called comb electrodes. Between interlacing fingers 62, 72 lie individual PZT elements 54, with the fingers 62 and 72 delineating those individual PZT elements 54, and successive ones of the PZT elements 54 being located along the longitudinal direction. The PZT actuator 50 is poled using the electrodes such that, in operation, when a voltage is applied across electrodes 60, 70, an electric field is induced in the longitudinal direction across the individual PZT elements 54 causing those elements to act in their d33 modes in the longitudinal direction, expanding or contracting depending on the polarity of the applied voltage. The expansion or contraction occurs in the same direction as the electric field, namely, the longitudinal direction. The total expansion or contraction of PZT actuator 50 generally equals the sum of the individual expansion or contraction of the individual PZT elements 54.

(6) First and second electrodes 60, 70 have been termed the “positive” and “negative” electrodes somewhat arbitrarily; at the device level either a positive or a negative voltage can be placed across the two electrodes thus causing the device to expand or contract, respectively. In practice, when a PZT device is installed in an environment and one electrode is grounded as installed, the two electrodes are often referred to as the ground electrode and the drive electrode.

(7) The PZT actuator 50 includes a constraint layer or constraining layer 80 affixed on the side of the device away from the side of the device that is mounted to the suspension. For purposes of discussion, the side of device 50 which is adhered to the suspension will be referred to as the bottom side, and the opposite site on which the constraint layer 80 is located will be referred to as the top side.

(8) Constraint layer 80 is made of a stiff material preferably having a Young modulus of greater than or equal to 50 GPa. The constraint layer 80 tends to resist the expansion or contraction of the PZT device 50, and hence tends to reduce, eliminate, or even change the sign of bowing that would occur in device 50 due to it expanding or contracting while being bonded on its bottom side to the suspension. The presence of the constraint layer 80 therefore actually increases the effective stroke length of the device as compared to if the constraint layer were not present, which is a counterintuitive result. The theory of operation of the constraint layer is discussed more fully in U.S. Pat. No. 9,117,468 by Zhang et al. which is assigned to the assignee of the present application, and which is incorporated herein by reference for its teaching of constraint layers.

(9) In one embodiment, the constraint layer 80 is a layer of stiff material such as stainless steel or silicon that is adhered to the device using adhesive.

(10) In another embodiment, the constraint layer 80 is a layer of active PZT material, but with layer 80 acting differently than the PZT layer 52 when a voltage is applied across the device's electrodes.

(11) In a first variation, the constraint layer 80 is a passive layer of substantially inactive PZT material, such that the device includes a first layer or section 52 of active PZT material, and a second layer or section 80 of substantially inactive PZT material. The PZT material that defines constraint layer 80 may be integrally formed with the material of PZT layer 52 and above that layer including its electrodes 60, 70, such as by well known sol-gel or thin film deposition techniques. In the sol-gel method, the green PZT material is laid down in fluid form and thereafter hardened. The PZT material of constraint layer 80 could be substantially inactive material either because it was never poled, and/or because there are no electrodes or at least no electrically connected electrodes extending into it that would induce an electric field across that material when an actuation voltage is applied across the first and second electrodes 60, 70. In this way, no substantial electric field is applied across inactive PZT layer 80, and thus inactive PZT layer 80 acts as a constraint layer tending to oppose expansion or contraction of active PZT layer 52. The inactive PZT layer 80 could be thicker than, thinner than, or of the same thickness as active PZT layer 52 and the vertical height of its electrodes 60, 70.

(12) In another variation of the constraint layer being of PZT material but acting differently than main PZT layer 52, the constraint layer 80 is of PZT material but that material is not completely inactive. The constraint layer 70 could be made less piezoelectrically active than first PZT layer 52 by one of various techniques including but not limited to (a) making the electrode fingers to be shorter in the lateral direction than are the fingers 62, 72 in the first PZT layer 52; (b) making the electrode fingers 62, 72 to be fewer and farther apart than they are in the first PZT layer 52, or (c) the piezoelectric material in the constraint layer 80 having a different composition than in the first layer 52, the material of constraint layer 80 being less piezoelectrically active than first layer 52.

(13) In yet another variation, the constraint layer 80 tends to act in the opposite direction as main PZT layer 52, such as taught in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 9,330,694 to Hahn et al. and which is hereby incorporated by reference for its teaching of a PZT actuator having an active constraint layer.

(14) In the embodiment shown, an insulation layer 90 covers most, but not all, of the bottom side of the device, leaving positive electrode 60 and negative electrode 70 exposed not only on the end walls 63, 73 of the device, but also electrically exposed at opposite ends of the bottom of the device. Conductive bridge 25 at either end of the device carries the activation voltages from copper contact pads 24′, 28′ of flexible circuit 22. The conductive bridge can be formed by, for example, a solder bridge formed by a solder jet ball (SJB) process, or it can be conductive epoxy. Alternatively, one of the electrodes 60, 70 can be a ground electrode, with conductive bridge 25 bridging from the ground electrode to the stainless steel layer of the flexure, preferably with a thin layer of nickel and then gold plated onto the stainless steel for a higher quality and corrosion-resistant ground connection. U.S. Pat. No. 9,025,285 to Lazatin et al., which is assigned to the assignee of the present application, is hereby incorporated by reference for its teachings of spot plating gold onto stainless steel such as for microactuator grounding in a suspension.

(15) Alternatively, because insulation layer 90 covers most of the bottom of the device but leaves exposed only the electrodes at the very ends of the device, conductive epoxy could be used to bond the device to the suspension, with the conductive epoxy electrically connecting first electrode 60 to copper contact pad 24′, and second electrode 70 to copper contact pad 28′.

(16) Still further, conductive epoxy could bond the ground electrode directly to the grounded stainless steel layer of the trace gimbal or other part of the suspension. For example, if second electrode 70 is the ground electrode, then copper contact pad 28′ and it insulation layer below could be eliminated, with conductive epoxy directly connecting ground electrode 70 to that grounded stainless steel. In such a case, preferably the stainless steel will have a thin layer of nickel and gold plated thereon to ensure a high quality electrical connection.

(17) As an alternative to the comb electrodes shown in FIG. 3 with conductive side walls 61, 71 being used to connect the electrode fingers, electrical vias can be formed through the PZT elements to connect the electrode fingers. PZTs having electrical vias in them, and methods of forming those PZTs and vias, are discussed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 8,773,820 to Hahn et al. which is assigned to the assignee of the present application and which is hereby incorporated by reference.

(18) The electrical connections disclosed above are merely exemplary. Various other electrical connection configurations are possible, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art of suspension design. For example, the PZT actuator can be bonded to the suspension using non-conductive epoxy. In such a case, insulating layer 90 may not be needed. An electrical connection from contact pads 24′ or 28′ to the PZT actuator can be made to the end wall electrodes 63, 73 of the device using solder jet ball bonding or using conductive epoxy.

(19) FIG. 3 is a side sectional view of the PZT actuator 50 of FIG. 2 taken along section line 3-3.

(20) FIG. 4 is a top plan view showing two of the PZTs of FIG. 2 mounted to a disk drive suspension. PZT actuators 50 are illustrated as being approximately half the length of PZT actuators 14 in prior art FIG. 1, which employs PZT microactuators acting in their d31 modes, to illustrate the fact that the d33 mode exhibits approximately twice the stroke length per unit of input voltage as the d31 mode. Accordingly, a PZT actuator according to the invention, which operates in the d33 mode, only needs to be approximately one half as long as prior art PZT actuators operating in the d31 modes in order to achieve the same stroke length for the same actuation voltage. Because a PZT actuator according to the invention needs to be only about half as long and therefore requires approximately half the mass as a d31 mode PZT actuator, a suspension made according to the invention will have less mass near the slider and hence will exhibit a higher servo bandwidth and higher shock tolerance. Additionally, the PZT should exhibit less susceptibility to shock-induced or other mechanical stress-induced cracking and resultant degradation or failure.

(21) Table 1 below presents the results of a simulation comparing the PZT actuator structure of FIGS. 2-4 to the prior art structure of FIG. 1. As can be seen in the table, the overall PZT size was reduced by half, while the stroke sensitivity was maintained and even increased somewhat. For simplicity, dead zones were neglected in the simulation model.

(22) TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Stroke Length Width Thickness Vol. Simulated Device (nm/V) (mm) (mm) (mm) Volume Ratio Prior Art: 25 μm 14.7 1.554 0.35 0.065 0.0354 100% Passive Constraint Layer + 40 μm active PZT Layer FIG. 3: Constraint 17.8 0.8  0.35 0.065 0.0182  51% Layer + 20 Layer d33 (40 μm/layer)

(23) It will be understood that the terms “generally,” “approximately,” “about,” “substantially,” and “coplanar” as used within the specification and the claims herein allow for a certain amount of variation from any exact dimensions, measurements, and arrangements, and that those terms should be understood within the context of the description and operation of the invention as disclosed herein.

(24) It will further be understood that terms such as “top,” “bottom,” “above,” “below,” “laterally,” and “longitudinally” as used within the specification and the claims herein are terms of convenience that denote the spatial relationships of parts and directions relative to each other rather than to any specific spatial or gravitational orientation. Thus, the terms are intended to encompass an assembly of component parts regardless of whether the assembly is oriented in the particular orientation shown in the drawings and described in the specification, upside down from that orientation, or any other rotational variation.

(25) Although the present invention has thus been described in detail with regard to the preferred embodiments and drawings thereof, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that various adaptations and modifications of the present invention may be accomplished without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention. Accordingly, it is to be understood that the detailed description and the accompanying drawings as set forth hereinabove are not intended to limit the breadth of the present invention, which should be inferred only from the following claims and their appropriately construed legal equivalents.