Patent ID: 7134186

Claim:
A method for fabricating a patterned, synthetic transversely exchange biased GMR sensor with narrow effective trackwidth comprising: providing a substrate; forming a seed layer on said substrate; forming a layer of antiferromagnetic material on the seed layer, said layer of antiferromagnetic material being a pinning layer; forming a synthetic antiferromagnetic pinned layer on said first antiferromagnetic pinning layer; forming a non-magnetic spacer layer on said pinned layer; forming a ferromagnetic free layer on said non-magnetic spacer layer; forming a non-magnetic antiferromagnetically coupling layer on said ferromagnetic free layer; forming a ferromagnetic, transversely biasing layer on said coupling layer; magnetizing and pinning the synthetic antiferromagnetic pinned layer with the first antiferromagnetic pinning layer; magnetizing and antiferromagnetically pinning with a first patterned antiferromagnetic pinning layer a first portion of said biasing layer in a first transverse direction using a first patterning and magnetizing process whereby said first portion is magnetized and exchange coupled to a first portion of the ferromagnetic free layer; magnetizing and antiferromagnetically pinning with a second patterned antiferromagnetic pinning layer a second portion of said biasing layer in a second transverse direction using a second patterning and magnetizing process whereby said second portion is magnetized in an opposite direction to said first portion and exchange coupled to a second portion of the ferromagnetic free layer removing, by an etching process, a central portion of said biasing layer which is situated between said pinned and magnetized first and second portions to form a trackwidth region of the sensor; forming a conductive lead layer over each of the antiferromagnetically pinned first and second portions of the transversely biasing layer.