Thin film inductive write heads incorporating 2-mu m-thick single and
multilayer FeAlN/SiO2 poles were fabricated. The poles were trimmed to
1 mu m trackwidth using focused ion beam etching from the air bearing
surface of the sliders. Tests on 2950 Oe media show satisfactory medi
a saturation. Overwrite in excess of -43 dB and hard transition peak s
hift <2 nm were measured for wide trackwidth heads with 0.2 mu m gap l
engths. Tracks written using a 1 mu m track width head were imaged usi
ng magnetic force microscopy, showing well defined transitions at line
ar densities up to 6500 flux changes per millimeter. A written track w
idth of approximately 1.1 mu m and a side erase band of less than 0.1
mu m were observed. Assuming a coding scheme with a density ratio of 1
.33, these heads promise a recording density of over 4 Gbit/in.(2) (C)
1996 American Institute of Physics.