Patent ID: 7672087

Claim:
A magnetoresistive effect element comprising: a non-magnetic intermediate layer formed of a non-magnetic material; a pinned layer formed of a ferromagnetic material and a free layer formed of a ferromagnetic material, said pinned layer and said free layer stacked so as to sandwich said non-magnetic intermediate layer; an antiferromagnetic layer stacked to have a surface contact with said pinned layer, for fixing a magnetization of said pinned layer to a direction in-plane of said pinned layer and perpendicular to a track width direction; and hard bias layers provided on both sides in the track width direction of said free layer, for applying a bias field to said free layer, a product λ S ×σ of a saturation magnetostriction constant λ S of said pinned layer and an internal stress σ on a cross-section perpendicular to a layer surface of said hard bias layer being negative.