Patent ID: 6879474

Claim:
A spin valve reading head, comprising: a dielectric layer on a magnetic shield; on said dielectric layer, a seed layer on which is a first antiferromagnetic layer; on said first antiferromagnetic layer, a bottom spin valve pedestal, having outwardly sloping sidewalls, that further comprises a free layer on a non-magnetic spacer layer on a pinned layer on a second antiferromagnetic layer, said second antiferromagnetic layer being exchange coupled to the first antiferromagnetic layer; on the sidewalls and the first antiferromagnetic layer, a layer of nickel chromium that is between about 10 and 100 Angstroms thick; on said layer of nickel-chromium, a hard bias seed layer; on said hard bias seed layer, a longitudinal hard bias layer; and on the longitudinal hard bias layer, a conductive lead layer.