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:
Mar. 24, 2015
Filed:
May. 16, 2013
Hgst Netherlands B.v., Amsterdam, NL;
Patrick Mesquita Braganca, San Jose, CA (US);
Jeffrey R. Childress, San Jose, CA (US);
Jordan Asher Katine, Mountain View, CA (US);
Yang Li, San Jose, CA (US);
Neil Leslie Robertson, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Neil Smith, San Jose, CA (US);
Petrus Antonius VanDerHeijden, Cupertino, CA (US);
Douglas Johnson Werner, Fremont, CA (US);
HGST Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam, NL;
Abstract
A current-perpendicular-to-the plane magnetoresistive sensor has top and bottom electrodes narrower than the sensor trackwidth. The electrodes are formed of one of Cu, Au, Ag and AgSn, which have an ion milling etch rate much higher than the etch rates for the sensor's ferromagnetic materials. Ion milling is performed at a high angle relative to a line orthogonal to the plane of the electrode layers and the layers in the sensor stack. Because of the much higher etch rate of the material of the top and bottom electrode layers, the electrode layers will have side edges that are recessed from the side edges of the free layer. This reduces the surface areas for the top and bottom electrodes, which causes the sense current passing through the sensor's free layer to be confined in a narrower channel, which is equivalent to having a sensor with narrower physical trackwidth.