Patent ID: 7292416

Claim:
A magnetoresistive head comprising: a first electrode; a single spin valve structure formed on said first electrode; and a second electrode formed on said single spin valve structure, wherein said first and said second electrodes are provided for current to flow perpendicular to track width direction, wherein said spin valve structure includes an antiferromagnetic film, a pinned magnetic layer, a free magnetic layer, and a non-magnetic film, wherein said pinned magnetic layer is provided between said antiferromagnetic film and said non-magnetic film, wherein magnetizing direction of said pinned magnetic layer is pinned by an exchange coupling field with the antiferromagnetic film, wherein said non-magnetic film is provided between said pinned magnetic layer and said free magnetic layer, wherein the free magnetic layer has first and second free magnetic films sandwiching a non-magnetic intermediate film therebetween, the respective magnetizing directions of the first and the second free magnetic films are in antiparallelism, the length of the free magnetic layer in the direction of the track width is 200 nm or less, and a difference between a product of saturation magnetic flux density and a film thickness of the first free magnetic film and a product of saturation magnetic flux density and a film thickness of the second free magnetic film is within a range from 1 to 3 nmT.