Analytic study of the effects of shield recession on the replay characteristics of an idealized MR sensor

A previously published two-dimensional conformal mapping solution for a shielded magnetoresistive (MR) sensor is used to explore the effect that recessing the shields has on replay from a vertically oriented medium in the presence of a soft magnetic underlayer. The horizontal and vertical head-field components, spectral response function, linear dibit shift, and roll-off curve of each of two heads, where the sensor tip and the shield faces are coplanar, are compared with those of the same heads with recessed shields. By recessing the shields, the solution may be applied to the case of an unshielded MR sensor.