Seagate Technology Incorporated

Jiansheng Xu

Daniel Hassett

Zhengqi Lu

Marcus Winston Ormston

Paula Frances McElhinney

Xin Cao

Frances Paula McElhinney

Eric Walter Singleton

Jae-Young Yi

Liwen Tan

Ann Lynch

A magnetoresistive (MR) sensor shield shields against both down track and cross-track interference and is formed in a single deposition step. A 'tail' portion of the shield is eliminated by including a non-magnetic material adjacent to opposite sides of a middle portion of the sensor stack.

Manufacturing method for reader side shield

A magnetoresistive (MR) sensor shield shields against both down track and cross-track interference. The shield can be formed in a single deposition step. In one implementation of the disclosed technology, a 'tail' portion of the shield is eliminated by including a non-magnetic material adjacent to opposite sides of a middle portion of the sensor stack.

Reader side shield

A reader sensor comprising a sensor stack and a composite top shield. The composite top shield includes a bulk shield portion and a SAF portion, the SAF portion comprising a top magnetic layered structure and a bottom magnetic layered structure with a non-magnetic layer therebetween. Each of the magnetic layered structures has at least one soft magnetic material layer bounded by layers comprising magnetic material having a magnetic moment of at least 1.4 T.

Sensor structure with multilayer top shield

In accordance with one implementation of the described technology, an apparatus comprises a sensor structure including a top shield which includes a top shield synthetic antiferromagnetic layer and a bottom shield including a bottom shield synthetic antiferromagnetic layer, wherein the bottom synthetic antiferromagnetic shield layer acts as a seed layer structure.

Magnetoresistive sensor having synthetic antiferromagnetic layer in top and bottom shields

A magnetic element capable of reading data may generally be configured at least with a magnetic seed lamination disposed between a data reader stack and a magnetic shield. The magnetic seed lamination may be constructed at least with one magnetic layer coupled to the bottom shield and at least one non-magnetic layer decoupling the data reader stack from the at least one magnetic layer.

Data reader with magnetic seed lamination

A magneto-resistive (MR) sensor may include a variety of individual functional layers whereby an electrical resistance throughout the layers of the sensor stack varies according to the polarity of a pinned layer within the sensor stack. A layered synthetic anti-ferromagnetic (SAF) upper shield of the MR sensor includes an upper SAF layer and a lower SAF layer separated by a shield anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) layer. The lower SAF layer is in contact with a side shield of the MR sensor, which provides a side shield biasing field to the MR sensor. The upper SAF layer separates the lower SAF layer from a top shield and/or domain control structure (DCS) magnet(s) of the MR sensor and shields the lower SAF layer and the sensor stack from DCS stray field(s), thereby reducing noise.

Layered synthetic anti-ferromagnetic upper shield

A data reader can be configured with at least a magnetically responsive lamination that has a first portion with a first stripe height from an air bearing surface (ABS) and a second portion with a different second stripe height from the ABS. The first portion can be constructed to have a back edge surface shaped at a predetermined angle relative to the ABS by a back edge feature.

Data reader with back edge surface

A magnetic element may generally be configured as a read head with at least a magnetic stack that contacts at least one magnetic shield. The magnetic shield can be positioned on top of a base lamination and have at least a predetermined anisotropy and magnetic coercivity corresponding to the base lamination.

Growing community of inventors

Londonderry, United Kingdom

Jiansheng Xu