Magnetic sensor manufacturing
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsQing He, Wonjoon Jung, Mark William Covington, Mark Thomas Kief, Yonghua Chen
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Abstract
A magnetic sensor comprising a first shield and a second shield and a sensor stack between the first and the second shield, the sensor stack having a plurality of layers wherein at least one layer is annealed using in-situ rapid thermal annealing. In one implementation of the magnetic sensor a seed layer is annealed using in-situ rapid thermal annealing. Alternatively, one of a barrier layer, an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer, and a cap layer is annealed using in-situ rapid thermal annealing.
Claims20
A read head comprising:
- a first shield layer;
- a second shield layer;
- a sensor stack located between the first shield layer and the second shield layer, the sensor stack including layers individually annealed after deposition, the layers including:
- an MgO barrier layer, the MgO barrier layer annealed after deposition and cryo-cooled after annealing;
- and
- an additional layer deposited on the MgO barrier layer;
- and
- a cap layer deposited on the additional layer.
A reader head fabrication assembly comprising:
- a sensor stack tool;
- and
- an in-situ rapid anneal module docked onto the sensor stack tool and configured to:
- individually anneal select layers of a sensor stack after deposition of each select layer during a stack deposition sequence, the select layers including:
- an MgO barrier layer, the MgO barrier layer undergoing the following steps:
- 1) depositing the MgO barrier layer;
- 2) annealing the deposited MgO barrier layer;
- and
- 3) cryo-cooling the annealed MgO barrier layer.
A method, comprising:
- annealing individually during a sensor stack deposition sequence at least two layers using in-situ rapid thermal annealing after each of the at least two layers of the sensor stack is deposited, wherein one of the annealed layers is an MgO barrier layer and wherein one of the annealed layers is an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer;
- and
- cryo-cooling the MgO barrier layer after the MgO barrier layer is annealed and before additional layers are deposited on the MgO barrier layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.