DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF UNSHIELDED DUAL-ELEMENT HORIZONTAL MR HEADS

An unshielded, dual-element horizontal MR head utilizing a differentia l detection technique was designed and fabricated. A new process was d eveloped for etching MR sensor gaps utilizing a combination of direct- write e-beam lithography, reactive ion etching, and ion milling, which allowed heads to be fabricated with MR gap lengths as small as 0.15 m u m. Fabricated heads were tested by quasi-statically passing them ove r prerecorded transitions on flexible particulate media. Calculations from two-dimensional analytical and finite-element models correlate we ll with readback data.