US 6,404,601 B1 · Merged write head with magnetically isolated poletip

Abstract

A magnetic head has an exchange isolated poletip located between a shield of an MR sensor and a write pole of an inductive sensor. The poletip is preferably made of high Bs material, allowing the flux that travels through the much larger pole layer to funnel through the poletip without saturation. The poletip is isolated from the shield layer in order to decouple the shield layer from unfavorable domain patterns that may occur in the poletip, which in turn reduces noise in the sensor, while the shield layer serves to complete the inductive circuit. Despite having a poletip isolated by nonmagnetic material, heads built according to this invention have demonstrated high overwrite as well as remarkably low noise.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A head for information storage and retrieval, the head comprising:

an inductive transducer including a conductive coil, a magnetically soft pole layer and a magnetically soft poletip, with said poletip separated from said pole layer by a submicron, nonmagnetic layer,
a magnetoresistive sensor separated from said conductive coil by a magnetically soft shield layer,
a second submicron, nonmagnetic layer separating said poletip from said shield layer, and
a submicron, magnetically soft layer seed layer adjoining said poletip and said second submicron, nonmagnetic layer.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Merged write head with magnetically isolated poletip

Life of this patent

Merged write head with magnetically isolated poletip

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21