MAGNETIC THIN FILM STRUCTURES AND METHODS FOR FORMING SAME

摘要

Magnetic thin film structures are disclosed including a laminate (10) of a layer (16) of nonmagnetic material sandwiched between first and second layers (12, 14) of magnetic material and at least one edge closure layer (18, 20) of magnetic material disposed on a side edge of the laminate with the edge closure layer being in magnetic contact with the first and second layers of magnetic material. The edge closure layer (18, 20) eliminates magnetic edge closure domains and magnetic edge-curling walls in the yoke (28) and poletip regions (30), or in a fluxguide (33) of a magnetic recording head (26) to substantially eliminate Barkhausen noise and wall network instabilities. Multiple layer laminates are also disclosed having a plurality of nonmagnetic layers each of which are sandwiched between layers of magnetic material and wherein the laminate (10) includes edge closure layers that contact all the magnetic layers. Several methods are disclosed for fabricating the laminate. In one class of technique, the side edges are deposited together with a top layer (134) in a single plating operation. In an another embodiment, the side edge closure layers are separately plated. Another embodiment provides for a layer (92) of antiferromagnetic material deposited between the nonmagnetic layer (16) and one of the magnetic layers (12, 14) to provide additional anisotropy.