Patent ID: 7787221

Claim:
A tunneling magnetic sensing element comprising: a pinned magnetic layer; an insulating barrier layer; and a free magnetic layer, disposed in that order from the bottom, the magnetization direction of the pinned magnetic layer being pinned, the other functioning as a free magnetic layer, and the magnetization direction of the free magnetic layer changing in response to an external magnetic field, wherein the pinned magnetic layer has a multilayered ferrimagnetic structure and includes a first magnetic sublayer, a nonmagnetic intermediate sublayer, and a second magnetic sublayer, disposed in that order from the bottom, wherein the second magnetic sublayer has a multilayered structure and includes at least one second insertion subsublayer composed of Ta and having an average thickness of 1 Å to 3 Å, and upper and lower ferromagnetic subsublayers, the second insertion subsublayer being disposed between the upper and lower ferromagnetic subsublayers, wherein the pinned magnetic layer, the insulating barrier layer, and the free magnetic layer are successively stacked in that order from the bottom, and wherein a thickness of the upper magnetic subsublayer is larger than a thickness of the lower magnetic subsublayer.