Patent ID: 8149548

Claim:
A magnetic head comprising: a lower magnetic shield layer; an upper magnetic shield layer; a magnetoresistive film disposed between the lower magnetic shield layer and the upper magnetic shield layer, the magnetoresistive film having a pinned layer, an intermediate layer, and a free layer; and a magnetic domain control film disposed on both ends in the direction of the track width of the magnetoresistive film; wherein the free layer has a first free layer and a second free layer stacked with a non-magnetic intermediate layer between, the first free layer being stacked on the intermediate layer over the pinned layer, magnetization in the first free layer and magnetization in the second free layer being in anti-parallel with each other, and a magnetization amount of the first free layer being larger than a magnetization amount of the second free layer, and wherein Sp 2 >Sp 1 is satisfied when assuming a distance between the first free layer and the magnetic domain control film is Sp 1 , and a distance between the second free layer and the magnetic domain control film is Sp 2 .