Read head having high resistance soft magnetic flux guide layer for enhancing read sensor efficiency

摘要

A read head has a flux guide layer that is immediately adjacent (abuts) the back edge of a read sensor. The flux guide layer is made of a high resistance soft magnetic material that conducts magnetic flux from the back edge of the read sensor so that the magnetic response at the back edge of the read sensor is significantly higher than zero. This increases the efficiency of the read sensor. The material for the flux guide layer is A-B-C where A is selected from the group Fe and Co, B is selected from the group Hf, Y, Ta and Zr and C is selected from the group O and N. In a preferred embodiment A-B-C is Fe-Hf-O and the Msrho of the flux guide layer is greater than 50 times the Msrho of the read sensor layer where the read sensor layer is NiFe, Ms is saturation magnetization and rho is resistivity. Because of the flux guides high resistance current shunting losses are nearly eliminated.