Sensitivity analysis of structure in GMR/insulator/SAL sensor

A guideline for the optimum design of the soft adjacent layer (SAL)-biased giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors, which are a promising MR head for use at high areal densities, with electromagnetic field computation based on a 2D finite element method is reported. The bias level is highly sensitive to the element height, and it is desirable that element height should be less than 1 /spl mu/m for the shielded sensor.