Patent ID: 7086141

Claim:
A manufacturing method of a magnetoresistive effect sensor comprising the steps of: stacking an anti-ferromagnetic layer made of an electrically conductive anti-ferromagnetic material; stacking a pinned layer on said anti-ferromagnetic layer; stacking a nonmagnetic spacer layer on said pinned layer; exposing a surface of said nonmagnetic spacer layer to an atmosphere of a mixed gas containing oxygen gas and argon gas containing an exposure amount of the oxygen in a range from 1.33×10 −3 to 1.33×10 2 Pa·sec one or more times to decrease a roughness in atomic level at an interface between said nonmagnetic spacer layer and a free layer for increasing MR ratio and reducing ferromagnetic coupling (Hin), an exposure amount of the oxygen being in a range from 1.33×10 −3 to 1.33×10 2 Pa·sec; stacking said free layer on said nonmagnetic spacer layer, a magnetization direction of said free layer being free depending upon a magnetic filed applied thereto; and providing said pinned layer a magnetization direction fixed by an exchange coupling between said anti-ferromagnetic layer and said pinned layer.