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US 6,581,272 B1Granted
Method for forming a bottom spin valve magnetoresistive sensor element
AssigneeHeadway Technologies, Inc.
InventorsMin Li, Simon H. Liao, Masashi Sano, Kiyoshi Noguchi, Kochan Ju, Cheng T. Horng
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Abstract
A method for forming a bottom spin valve sensor having a synthetic antiferromagnetic pinned (SyAP) layer, antiferromagnetically coupled to a pinning layer, in which one of the layers of the SyAP is formed as a three layer lamination that contains a specularly reflecting oxide layer of FeTaO. The sensor formed according to this method has an extremely high GMR ratio and exhibits good pinning strength.
Claims22
A method for forming a bottom spin valve magnetoresistive sensor element comprising:
- providing a substrate;
- forming on the substrate a magnetoresistive-property-enhancing seed layer;
- forming on said seed layer a pinning layer of antiferromagnetic material;
- forming on said pinning layer a second antiparallel (AP2) pinned layer of ferromagnetic material;
- forming on said second antiparallel (AP2) pinned layer a non-magnetic coupling layer;
- forming on said non-magnetic coupling layer a first antiparallel (AP1) pinned layer, said first antiparallel (AP1) pinned layer comprising a first ferromagnetic layer on which is formed a specular reflection enhancing layer on which is formed a second ferromagnetic layer;
- forming on said second ferromagnetic layer a non-magnetic spacer layer;
- forming on said non-magnetic spacer layer a ferromagnetic free layer;
- forming on said ferromagnetic free layer a double-layer capping layer, said capping layer comprising a first layer of non-magnetic material on which is formed a second layer of non-magnetic material;
- thermally annealing said sensor element at a prescribed succession of temperatures in the presence of a corresponding sequence of external magnetic fields, establishing, thereby, magnetizations of said free and said pinned magnetic layers.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.