The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 2003
Filed:
Jan. 26, 2001
Min Li, Fremont, CA (US);
Cheng T. Horng, San Jose, CA (US);
Ru Ying Tong, San Jose, CA (US);
Simon H. Liao, Fremont, CA (US);
Kochan Ju, Fremont, CA (US);
Headway Technologies, Inc., Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A spin valve structure and a method for manufacturing it are described. The spin valve uses a modified pinned layer that consists of two cobalt iron layers separated by a layer of either ruthenium, iridium, or rhodium. A key feature of the invention is that this spacer layer is significantly thinner (typically 3-4 Angstroms) than similar layers in prior art structures. Normally, when such thin spacer layers are used, annealing fields in excess of 20,000 Oersted are needed to cause the two cobalt iron layers to become antiparallel. The present invention, however, teaches that much lower annealing fields (spanning a limited range) may be used with equal effect. The result is that a very high internal pinning field is created giving devices of this type greater pinned layer stability and reduced pinning reversal. These devices also exhibits a minimum amount of open looping in their hysteresis curves.