Patent ID: 6927950

Claim:
A thin-film magnetic head comprising: a medium facing surface that faces toward a recording medium; a magnetoresistive element having two surfaces that face toward opposite directions, two side portions, and an end located in the medium facing surface; two bias field applying layers that are adjacent to the side portions of the magnetoresistive element and apply a bias magnetic field to the magnetoresistive element; and two conductive layers that feed a current used for magnetic signal detection to the magnetoresistive element, each of the conductive layers being adjacent to one of surfaces of each of the bias field applying layers and having an end located in the medium facing surface, wherein the conductive layers are each made of a gold alloy having a resistivity of less than 22 μΩ·cm and a hardness as high as or higher than a hardness of a material used for making the bias field applying layers, each of the conductive layers is located to overlap one of the surfaces of the magnetoresistive element and is in contact with the magnetoresistive element only at the one of the surfaces of the magnetoresistive element, and each of the conductive layers has a sheet resistivity equal to or less than one-eighth of a sheet resistivity of the magnetoresistive element.