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US 7,007,373 B2Granted
Method of manufacturing enhanced spin-valve sensor with engineered overlayer
AssigneeHitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.
InventorsWitold Kula, Alexander M. Zeltser
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Abstract
A method for making an enhanced spin valve sensor with engineered overlayer for sensing magnetically recorded information on a data storage medium. The method includes forming a ferromagnetic free layer and a ferromagnetic pinned layer sandwiching an electrically conductive spacer layer. An overlayer is formed on the free layer and adapted to decrease free layer magnetic thickness without reducing physical thickness.
Claims10
A method of making a GMR sensor with reduced free layer magnetic thickness without reduced free layer physical thickness comprising:
- forming a ferromagnetic pinned layer having a substantially fixed magnetic moment;
- forming an electrically conductive spacer layer above said ferromagnetic pinned layer;
- forming a ferromagnetic free layer above said electrically conductive spacer layer such that said free layer has a physical thickness (t) and a magnetic thickness (Mr*t) representing the product of a remanent magnetic moment density (Mr) of said free layer and said free layer physical thickness (t);
- and
- reducing said free layer magnetic thickness by fanning a protective electrically non-conducting overlayer on said free layer using a deposition process in which said overlayer is deposited directly on said free layer in the presence of an oxidizing atmosphere that is controlled, to reduce said free layer magnetic thickness to a desired level without reducing said free layer physical thickness.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.