Process for manufacturing a spin valve recording head

A process for manufacturing a spin valve recording head, comprising:

• providing a dielectric layer on a magnetic shield;
• on said dielectric layer, depositing an antiferromagnetic layer;
• in succession, depositing on said antiferromagnetic layer a pinned layer, a non-magnetic spacer layer, and a free layer, thereby forming a bottom spin valve stack;
• on the free layer, forming an etch mask that defines a pedestal;
• using said mask, etching the stack and under-cutting said mask until all unprotected parts of said free layer, spacer layer and pinned layer and about one half of said antiferromagnetic layer have been removed, thereby forming the pedestal, said pedestal having outwardly sloping sidewalls that extend from the free layer to the unremoved portion of the antiferromagnetic layer;
• on the sidewalls, depositing a non-magnetic surface smoothing layer that is between about 10 and 100 Angstroms thick
• on said smoothing layer, depositing a hard bias seed layer,
• on said hard bias seed layer, depositing a longitudinal hard bias layer;
• and
• on the longitudinal hard bias layer, depositing a conductive lead layer.