Abstract
Mechanical resonance of optical pick-up actuators can cause errors in reading information from high-speed optical discs. Ferrofluid on the surface of magnets is retained in a magnetic field and its viscosity provides the desired mechanical damping to a moving mass. A ferrofluidic damper that is controlled by saturation magnetization for an optical pick-up actuator not only improves system performance such as settling time and access time of a drive on warped or eccentric discs but also remarkably delays temperature increase due to the induction of overcurrent on the coils.