Advanced vertical MR head

A newly designed vertical magnetoresistive (MR)/inductive head has been developed. In this new head, the read element has the tri-layer structure, in which the insulator layer is sandwiched between the two permalloy layers, and both ends of the elements are filled with the insulator. The sense current lead is connected only to the upper NiFe layer. As a result, not only the sense current density is enlarged but also the film Hk is reduced. The sensor sensitivity is estimated to be 2.5 times as large as that of the conventional vertical MR sensor. The output level of about 700 /spl mu/Vpp is obtained at the read track width of 1.5 /spl mu/m. The D/sub 50/ is at about 5.8 kfc/mm.