Method and system for providing an antiferromagnetically coupled writer

A disk drive comprising:

• a media;
• and
• at least one slider including at least one magnetic write transducer, the magnetic write transducer including a pole and a nonmagnetic intermediate layer adjacent to the pole, the pole having a paddle and a pole tip including a plurality of sidewalls, the pole including a first magnetic pole layer, at least one antiferromagnetic coupling (AFC) structure on the first magnetic pole layer, and a second magnetic pole layer on the at least one AFC structure, at least a portion of the first magnetic pole layer residing on the sidewalls of the pole tip, the paddle having a paddle width in a track width direction, pole tip having a pole tip width in a track width direction that is less than the paddle width, the at least one AFC structure residing only in the paddle of the pole, the first magnetic pole layer substantially filling the pole tip such that the pole tip is ferromagnetic.