Flux-guide type tunnel-valve head for helical scan tape system

Summary form only given. In helical scan tape drives, wearing of the reader on the drum that rotates at high speed gives rise to the deterioration of reliability. In order to achieve high reliability and high density recording, flux-guide (FG) type MR readers using magnetic tunnel junctions were fabricated for the tape drives. A longitudinal biasing scheme, which combines permanent magnet biasing with a long-range exchange coupling biasing toward all the track positions (E. Nakashio et al, J. Appl. Phys. vol. 89, p. 7356, 2001), was utilized to stabilize the FG type tunnel-valve readers.