Patent ID: 8289649

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a magnetic head for perpendicular magnetic recording, the magnetic head comprising: a medium facing surface that faces a recording medium; a coil that produces a magnetic field corresponding to data to be written on the recording medium; a main magnetic pole that has an end face located in the medium facing surface, allows a magnetic flux corresponding to the magnetic field produced by the coil to pass, and produces a write magnetic field for writing the data on the recording medium by means of a perpendicular magnetic recording system; a shield made of a magnetic material and having an end face that is located in the medium facing surface to wrap around the end face of the main magnetic pole; and a gap part made of a nonmagnetic material and provided between the main magnetic pole and the shield, wherein: the shield includes a bottom shield, first and second side shields, and a top shield; the bottom shield has an end face and a top surface, the end face being located in the medium facing surface at a position backward of the end face of the main magnetic pole along a direction of travel of the recording medium; the first and second side shields have two end faces that are located in the medium facing surface at positions on opposite sides of the end face of the main magnetic pole in a track width direction; the top shield has an end face that is located in the medium facing surface at a position forward of the end face of the main magnetic pole along the direction of travel of the recording medium; and the gap part includes a first gap layer disposed between the main magnetic pole and the bottom shield and between the main magnetic pole and the first and second side shields, and a second gap layer disposed between the main magnetic pole and the top shield, the method comprising the steps of: forming the bottom shield; forming a mold on the top surface of the bottom shield excluding regions thereof where the first and second side shields are to be formed later, the mold having a shape determined by photolithography and being intended to be removed later; forming the first and second side shields on the top surface of the bottom shield after the formation of the mold, by performing plating without forming a seed layer; removing the mold after the formation of the first and second side shields; forming the first gap layer after the removal of the mold; forming the main magnetic pole after the formation of the first gap layer; forming the second gap layer after the formation of the main magnetic pole; forming the top shield after the formation of the second gap layer; and forming the coil.