Patent ID: 6425989
Filing Date: 2002-07-30
Classification: B82Y,C23C,G11B

Abstract:
A method of making at least one of a ferromagnetic first shield layer, a ferromagnetic second shield layer, a ferromagnetic first pole piece layer and a ferromagnetic second pole piece layer of a read write magnetic head that has an air bearing surface (ABS) with a magnetron sputtering system wherein the magnetron sputtering system includes a sputtering chamber, a wafer substrate in the chamber where the layers are to be formed, a magnetron cathode assembly including a target in the chamber of a selected material to be sputtered and a magnetron array mounted behind the target such that the target is located between the magnetron array and the substrate, a first power supply for applying power with an RF component to the magnetron, a second power supply for applying an RF substrate bias to the wafer substrate, a process gases supply and a gas and pressure control means for controlling flows and mixtures of selected process gases to the chamber under a selected pressure, the method comprising the steps of:employing the second power supply to apply an RF bias to the wafer substrate from 0 to âˆ’15 volts; employing the process gases supply and the gas and pressure control means to supply selected gases to the chamber with a pressure from 4.0Ã—10âˆ’3 to 8.0Ã—10âˆ’3 mbar with at least one of the selected gases being nitrogen (N2); providing a selected material for the target that is iron (Fe) based; sputter depositing the selected material to form on said wafer substrate at least one of said layers comprising an iron nitride (Feâ€”N) based material with said at least one of the layers having an easy axis and a hard axis; and hard axis annealing the at least one of the layers with a magnetic field applied parallel to the hard axis of said at least one of the layers.