Patent ID: 8189292

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a magnetic write head, comprising: providing a substrate; depositing a magnetic write pole material over the substrate; forming a magnetic step structure on the magnetic write pole material, the step structure having an edge; forming a write pole defining mask structure over the write pole material and the magnetic step structure, the write pole defining mask structure including a RlEable, multilayer hard mask formed directly over the write pole material and the magnetic step structure; performing an ion milling to remove portions of the write pole material that are not protected by the write pole defining mask structure, thereby defining a write pole; conformally depositing an alumina layer over the write pole, remaining write pole defining mask structure and magnetic step structure; performing a second ion milling to preferentially remove horizontally disposed portions of the alumina layer to form non-magnetic side gap layers at first and second sides of the write pole; and performing a reactive ion etching process to remove any remaining hard mask.