Study of narrow tracks written with FeAlN write heads

Thin film inductive write heads with track-widths down to 0.7 /spl mu/m were fabricated by trimming wide track-width heads using focused ion beam etching from the slider air bearing surface. These heads incorporated FeAlN high moment pole material. They were observed to saturate media with coercivity of 2950 Oe. In this work, magnetic force microscopy (MFM) is used to evaluate tracks written by these heads. Sharply defined track edges were observed even for the narrow track-width heads up to high linear density. Simulations using accepted models for wide track writing agree with some of the experimentally observed trends for the submicron tracks.