FABRICATION AND PERFORMANCE OF HIGH MOMENT LAMINATED FEAIN THIN-FILM INDUCTIVE RECORDING-HEADS

Experimental thin film inductive heads using previously developed laminated FeAlN high moment soft magnetic materials have been designed, and fabricated to the wafer level. The heads, with a gap length of 0.2 mum and trackwidths varying from 6 to 84 mum, were fabricated with a mainly dry process. The dynamic domain patterns of the top magnetic poles were observed with a high speed wide-field Kerr microscope. Closure domains were not present, while multiple easy-axis domains were observed in the head yokes. The head inductances were measured from 1 to 50 MHz with a network analyzer. The electrical and magnetic testing results show that the fabricated heads function well at the wafer level and that laminated FeAlN high moment material is a very promising candidate for future high-density recording head applications.