METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRECISELY DIMENSIONING POLE TIPS OF A MAGNETIC TRANSDUCING HEAD STRUCTURE

摘要

A method and apparatus for processing a magnetic transducer (10) uses a gallium ion beam (210) to precisely define a pole tip region of the magnetic transducer. The precision pole tip widths provide a transducer that may record correspondingly precise track widths on a magnetic storage medium, such as a rotating disk. During the ion milling process an image detector (207) determines an image of the pole tip region to control subsequent ion beam milling with either a focused or defocused ion beam. Subsequent to the ion milling process, the magnetically conductive properties of the pole tip region, which may be degraded as a result of unwanted ion implantation during the ion milling process, are restored by means of a lapping process.