High Speed Accessing using Split Optical Head

A magneto-optical disk drive is foreseen to be used as removable large capacity computer external file. However, the magneto-optical disk drive performance is less from access time and data transfer rate points of view, compared with the magnetic disk drive performance. Therefore, high speed accessing is desired for the magneto-optical disk drive when used as a computer external file. To improve the access time, a split optical system, which is constructed with a light weight moving part and a fixed optical part, was reported for the magneto-optical disk drive.(1) There are a linear type actuator and a swing-arm type actuator for accessing. In the former case, the optical axis displacement between a fixed part and a moving part is one of the problem. In latter case, access stroke limitation, because of the circle arc trace, is one of the problem.