Ion beam deposition processes for improved hard bias magnetic and device properties in the abutted junction configuration

Permanent magnet films of Cr/CoCrPt for use in an abutted junction hard bias scheme were deposited by an ion beam deposition (IBD) system. The deposition angle control of IBD systems was employed to yield some excellent material and device related improvements. For films with the structure Cr-50 Angstrom/CoCrPt-250 Angstrom, increasing the deposition angle theta (as measured from the substrate normal) of the Cr layer from 20 degrees to 60 degrees, resulted in an increase in coercivity from 1860 to 1905 Oe. X-ray diffraction measurements showed that this improvement was related to an increase in CoCrPt in-plane texture and a decrease in c-axis perpendicular texture. The reason for this increase in in-plane texture is that there is better epitaxial matching between the CoCrPt and the Cr underlayer brought about by a change in the lattice dimension of Cr as a result of changing stress levels. Another positive effect of depositing the Cr at a larger angle is that the Cr would be thicker farther into the abutted junction and thus delay the onset of poor magnetic properties due to a thinning underlayer. The angle of deposition parameter can be used to further advantage by depositing the lead layer at a larger angle than the permanent magnet layers. This type of scheme would allow the leads to encroach over the permanent magnets and make direct contact with the sensor, yielding low contact resistance. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)87208-4].