International Business Machines Corporation

Robert D Hempstead

Sol Krongelb

Erich P Valstyn

Daniel A Nepela

David A Thompson

Christopher H Bajorek

Swie-In Tan

Norman G Ainslie

James Bryant Money

Thomas N Kennedy

Ashok Frank Mayadas

Nephi L Head

Fred Y Lieu

A thin film inductive head is formed with nickel-iron binary alloy or nickel-iron-X ternary alloy pole pieces characterized by negative magnetostriction having a saturation magnetostriction coefficient in the range of -1.times.10.sup.-6 to -5.times.10.sup.-6.

Thin film head having negative magnetostriction

A slider element includes a thin film transducer deposited onto a slider along at least one of the rails forming the flying air bearing surface with a magnetic media. A portion of the end tips of the pole pieces and gap of the thin film inductive transducer and a portion of the slider rail adjacent to the transducer is etched by a sputter etching process. A layer of a passivation material such as chromium is sputter deposited into the etched portion such that the leading portion of the rail protects the passivation material from wear. The passivation material over the pole tips of the transducer prevents the corrosion of the iron-nickel alloy comprising the pole tips.

Corrosion resistant thin film head assembly and method for making

In thin film magnetic transducers, e.g., inductive or magnetoresistive recording heads, at least a pair of layers of a ferromagnetic material and an antiferromagnetic material are deposited upon one another and exchange coupled to retain a unidirectional bias in the plane of the ferromagnetic material. When multiple pairs of layers are used, they are separated by layers of nonmagnetic material. In some cases, successive pairs of layers of material with unidirectional bias have their directions of bias pointing in opposite directions. The domain walls in the layers of material are minimized by this technique.

Antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic exchange bias films

Iron-silicon is sputtered onto a substrate to be used for a magnetic recording head from a target containing 4% to 7% of silicon with a substrate bias between -2.5 and -60 volts, anode-cathode spacing of about 1/2 to about 2 inches, a deposition rate of greater than 150A/min, a substrate temperature above 250.degree. C, an argon pressure above 10 microns, and a single film thickness greater than 0.4 micron, a laminated film thickness greater than 0.05 micron, and R.F. input power above 8 watts/in.sup.2.

Low coercivity iron-silicon material, shields, and process

A magnetoresistive permalloy film is deposited upon a substrate and coated with a separating layer composed of titanium or a similar high resistivity, conductive material. A soft biasing layer of a material such as permalloy or a hard biasing material such as cobalt chromium is deposited upon the separating layer to complete a sandwich. All layers are coextensive in outline because their outlines are formed by a single etching step.

Growing community of inventors

Morgan Hill, CA, United States of America

Robert D Hempstead