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US 7,023,658 B1Granted
Submicron track-width pole-tips for electromagnetic transducers
AssigneeWestern Digital (Fremont), LLC
InventorsKenneth E. Knapp, Ronald A. Barr, Zhupei Shi, Billy W. Crue, Jr.
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A trailing pole-tip for an electromagnetic transducer is formed as a layer oriented substantially perpendicular to other layers of the transducer, allowing the pole-tip to be made much thinner than conventional pole-tips. The novel pole-tip is formed on an edge or sidewall of a base layer instead of being formed on top of an existing layer. Potential errors in pole-tip thickness are much less than standard error tolerances for conventional pole-tip thickness. Having a greatly reduced pole-tip width significantly reduces the track width so that many more tracks can fit on a media surface, providing a large increase in areal density.
Claims43
A transducer comprising:
- a plurality of solid layers, including a magnetically soft loop substantially encircling an electrically conductive coil section and terminating in lead and trailing magnetically soft layers separated by an amagnetic gap layer, said trailing magnetically soft layer being oriented substantially perpendicular to said amagnetic layer, wherein said trailing magnetically soft layer has a width measured in a direction substantially parallel to said amagnetic layer, said width being less than about two hundred nanometers and greater than about twenty angstroms;
- wherein said trailing magnetically soft layer has a length measured in a direction substantially perpendicular to said amagnetic layer, with said length being at least six times greater than said width.
A transducer for an information storage system, the transducer comprising:
- a plurality of solid layers, including a magnetoresistive sensor layer and a magnetically soft loop substantially encircling an electrically conductive coil section and terminating adjacent a media-facing surface in leading and trailing magnetically soft layers separated by an amagnetic gap layer, said trailing magnetically soft layer being oriented substantially perpendicular to said magnetoresistive sensor layer and having a width measured in a direction substantially parallel to said magnetoresistive sensor layer, said width being less than about two hundred nanometers and greater than about twenty angstroms;
- wherein said trailing magnetically soft layer has a length measured in a direction substantially perpendicular to said magnetoresistive sensor layer, with said length being at least six times greater than said width.
A transducer comprising:
- a magnetoresistive sensor layer,
- a magnetically soft loop disposed adjacent to said magnetoresistive sensor layer, traversed by an electrically conductive coil section and including magnetically soft leading and trailing pole-tips disposed adjacent to a media-facing surface, said trailing pole-tip aligned with said magnetoresistive sensor layer along a longitudinal direction and having a width measured in a track-width direction that is perpendicular to said longitudinal direction, said longitudinal and track-width directions being substantially parallel to said media-facing surface, said width being less than two hundred nanometers and greater than twenty angstroms;
- wherein said trailing pole-tip has a length measured in said longitudinal direction, said length being at least five times greater than said width.
A disk drive comprising:
- a rigid magnetic disk, and
- a magnetic head disposed adjacent to the disk, the head including a magnetically soft loop substantially encircling an electrically conductive coil section and terminating in leading and trailing magnetically soft layers separated by an amagnetic gap layer, one of said magnetically soft layers being oriented substantially perpendicular to said amagnetic layer, wherein said one magnetically soft layer has a width measured in a direction substantially parallel to said amagnetic layer, said width being less than about two hundred nanometers and greater than about twenty angstroms;
- wherein said trailing magnetically soft layer has a length measured in a direction substantially perpendicular to said amagnetic layer, said length being at least six times greater than said width.
A disk drive comprising:
- a rigid magnetic disk;
- and
- an electromagnetic transducer disposed adjacent to said disk, the transducer including a magnetoresistive sensor layer, and a magnetically soft loop disposed adjacent to said magnetoresistive sensor layer, traversed by an electrically conductive coil section and including magnetically soft leading and trailing pole-tips disposed adjacent to a media-facing surface, said trailing pole-tip aligned with said magnetoresistive sensor layer along a longitudinal direction and having a width measured in a track-width direction that is perpendicular to said longitudinal direction, said longitudinal and track-width directions being substantially parallel to said media-facing surface, with said width being less than two hundred nanometers and greater than twenty angstroms;
- wherein said trailing pole-tip has a length measured in said longitudinal direction, said length being at least five times greater than said width.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.