Pole width control on plated bevel main pole design of a perpendicular magnetic recording head

A method of forming a pole tip region in a main pole layer of a PMR write head, said pole tip region is formed on a substrate along a first plane that is perpendicular to said substrate, comprising:

• (a) providing a substrate with a seed layer and a patterned photoresist layer sequentially formed thereon, said patterned photoresist layer having a top, bottom, and sloped sidewalls that exposes portions of the seed layer;
• (b) depositing a main pole layer comprised of a pole tip region with an inverted trapezoidal shape, a top surface, and sidewalls on exposed portions of the seed layer;
• (c) thinning the photoresist layer to a certain distance below the top surface of said main pole layer and pole tip region to expose the sidewalls in an upper portion of the pole tip region;
• (d) performing a first ion milling process to trim the upper portion to a rectangular shape;
• (e) removing said photoresist layer;
• (f) performing a second ion milling process to remove exposed portions of said seed layer and trim said main pole layer to provide a pole tip region having an upper rectangular portion with a first width along the first plane and a lower inverted trapezoidal portion having a second thickness, a top surface with a first width, and a bottom surface with a second width less than the first width along the first plane;
• and
• (g) depositing an insulation layer on said main pole layer and pole tip region and planarizing the insulation layer to be coplanar with the main pole layer thereby thinning the upper rectangular portion to a first thickness.