Anisotropy control in fabrication process for NiMn spin-valve dual element heads

Author

Ishi, Tsutomu ; Suzuki, Tetsuhiro ; Ishiwata, Nobuyuki ; Nakada, Masafumi ; Yamada, Kazuhiko ; Shimabayashi, Kiyotaka ; Urai, Haruo

Author_Institution

Functional Devices Res. Labs., NEC Corp., Tokyo, Japan

Volume

34

Issue

4

fYear

1998

fDate

7/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1411

Lastpage

1413

Abstract

NiMn antiferromagnets with a high blocking temperature are attractive for application to the pinning layer in spin-valve heads, because a highly stable exchange coupling field is expected through their use. We have fabricated NiMn spin-valve heads having a CoZrTa bottom shield and a CoZrTa/NiFe write element, using an anisotropy control process which provides a desirable magnetization configuration in each magnetic layer. These heads showed highly stable, symmetrical, and Barkhausen noise free readback waveforms with output voltage of over 800 μV_pp/μm

Keywords

antiferromagnetic materials; exchange interactions (electron); magnetic anisotropy; magnetic heads; magnetic thin film devices; manganese alloys; nickel alloys; Barkhausen noise free readback waveforms; CoZrTa; CoZrTa bottom shield; CoZrTa/NiFe write element; NiFe; NiMn; NiMn antiferromagnets; anisotropy control; exchange coupling field; output voltage; pinning layer; spin-valve dual element heads; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Antiferromagnetic materials; Fabrication; Magnetic anisotropy; Magnetic heads; Magnetic shielding; Magnetization; Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; Process control; Temperature;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.706565

Filename

706565