Hgst Netherlands, B.v.

Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Hiroaki Chihaya

Satoru Araki

Dustin William Erickson

David John Seagle

Diane L Brown

Hardayal Singh Gill

Haiwen Xi

Chang Man Park

Structures and methods for fabrication servo and data heads of tape modules are provided. The servo head may have two shield layers spaced apart by a plurality of gap layers and a sensor. Similarly, the data head may have two shield layers spaced apart by a plurality of gap layers and a sensor. The distance between the shield layers of the servo head may be greater than the distance between the shield layers of the data head. The material of the gap layers may include tantalum or an alloy of nickel and chromium. The material for the gap layers permits deposition of gap layers with sufficiently small surface roughness to prevent distortion of the tape module and increase the stability of the tape module operation.

Material for use in a TMR read gap without adversely affecting the TMR effect

A magnetic read sensor having improved robustness to withstand thermal variations resulting from thermal fly height heating. Improved thermal robustness comes as a result of improved pinned layer pinning. The read head includes an AFM layer having an increased thickness to provide a higher blocking temperature. The read head further includes a pinned layer structure that includes a first magnetic layer adjacent to and exchange coupled with the AFM layer. The first layer comprises a Co&#x2014;Fe layer with an increased Fe content of 20-30 atomic percent. The pinned layer structure also includes a second magnetic layer that is antiparallel coupled with the AP1 layer. The AP2 layer can be a multi-layer structure that includes a layer of CoFe, a layer of Co&#x2014;Fe&#x2014;Hf formed on the layer of Co&#x2014;Fe, a layer of Co&#x2014;Fe&#x2014;B formed on the layer of Co&#x2014;Fe&#x2014;Hf, and a second layer of Co&#x2014;Fe formed on the layer of Co&#x2014;Fe&#x2014;B.

Magnetic sensor having improved resistance to thermal stress induced instability

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Odawara, Japan

Hiroaki Chihaya