THIN-FILM HEADS WITH ANISOTROPY-DETERMINED TRACK WIDTHS

Multitrack yoke-type MR readout heads having a single shared front flu xguide with a highly anisotropic permeability, have been designed and evaluated. The well defined microtrack response profiles of these head s show that the anisotropy of the permeability confines the flux-detec tion to the area on tape in between the contact leads of the MR elemen t. This can be exploited in ''full-density'' tape recording heads whic h read directly a number of adjacent tracks.