Patent ID: 8873204

Claim:
A magnetoresistive sensor structure for sensing magnetically recorded data from a magnetic recording medium, the structure comprising: a substrate; a bottom magnetic shield on the substrate; a first magnetoresistive sensor on the bottom magnetic shield and having a front edge for facing a magnetic recording medium and two side edges, the first sensor comprising a ferromagnetic free layer having a magnetization oriented generally parallel to said first sensor front edge and a pinned ferromagnetic layer having a magnetization oriented generally orthogonal to said first sensor front edge; a side shield of magnetically permeable material adjacent to each side edge of the first sensor free layer and having a magnetization generally parallel to the magnetization of the first sensor free layer for biasing the magnetization of the first sensor free layer; a center magnetic shield comprising a first ferromagnetic layer on the first sensor and the first sensor side shields, a second ferromagnetic layer, an antiparallel coupling (APC) layer between said first and second ferromagnetic layers that couples said first and second ferromagnetic layers together antiferromagnetically, an antiferromagnetic layer exchange coupled to the second ferromagnetic layer for pinning the magnetization of the second ferromagnetic layer substantially orthogonal to the pinned layer of the first sensor, a third ferromagnetic layer, and a nonmagnetic decoupling layer between the second and third ferromagnetic layers, wherein the first ferromagnetic layer comprises a layer of an alloy comprising Co, Fe and B; and a second magnetoresistive sensor on the third ferromagnetic layer of the center shield and having a front edge for facing a magnetic recording medium and two side edges, the second sensor comprising a ferromagnetic free layer having a magnetization oriented generally parallel to said second sensor front edge and a pinned ferromagnetic layer having a magnetization oriented generally orthogonal to said second sensor front edge.