A Ni-Mn spin valve for high density recording

A spin valve with a Ni-Mn pinning laver has been annealed in a field parall el and perpendicular to the easy axis of its Co reference laver, and found to exhibit high thermal stability. After a parallel-field anneal for 13.2 h at 280 degreesC, this Ni-Mn spin valve still exhibits a low ferromagnetic coupling field (4.9 Oe) and a high giant magnetoresistance (GMR) coefficien t (9.2%). After a perpendicular-held anneal for 13.2 h at 180 degreesC, its Co reference layer is rotated by 19.8 degrees. This Ni-Mn spin valve has b een implemented into a head manufacturing process and used as a 10 Gb/in(2) read sensor in a commercially available notebook computer. Its read perfor mance has been studied from transfer curves, micro-track profiles and readb ack waveforms, With a sense current of 4 mA, signal sensitivity of 2.48 mV/ mum has been attained.