Patent ID: 8607438

Claim:
A method for fabricating a read sensor on a substrate for a read transducer, the read transducer having a field region and a sensor region corresponding to the read sensor, the method comprising: depositing a read sensor stack including a plurality of layers on the substrate; providing a hybrid mask including a hard mask and a field mask, the hard mask including a sensor portion covering the sensor region of the read sensor stack and a field portion covering the field region of the read sensor stack, the hard mask exposing a first portion of the read sensor stack between the sensor portion and the field portion of the hard mask, the field mask covering the field portion of the hard mask, the field mask exposing the sensor portion of the hard mask on the sensor region and a second portion of the read sensor stack between the sensor region and the field region; defining the read sensor from the read sensor stack in a track width direction, the defining the read sensor including substantially removing the second portion of the read sensor stack; depositing at least one hard bias layer, a portion of the at least one hard bias layer residing on the field mask; sealing a portion of the at least one hard bias layer adjoining the sensor region; lifting off the field mask; and performing a planarization.