Patent ID: 7339763

Claim:
A magnetic recording disk drive thin-film inductive write head structure comprising: a slider having a disk-facing surface and an end face substantially perpendicular to the disk-facing surface; a thin-film inductive write head formed on the end face of the slider and comprising (a) a first ferromagnetic pole piece comprising a first pole layer (P 1 ), a first pedestal pole layer (P 1 Pa) on P 1 and formed of a ferromagnetic alloy comprising Ni and Fe wherein the ratio of Ni to Fe in P 1 Pa is between about 40/60 and 50/50, a second pedestal pole layer (P 1 Pb) on P 1 Pa and formed of a ferromagnetic alloy comprising Ni and Fe, wherein the ratio of Ni to Fe in P 1 Pb is between about 15/85 and 25/75, and having a thickness less than the thickness of P 1 Pa, and a CoFe alloy capping layer (P 1 C) on P 1 Pb and having a magnetic flux density at least 0.8 Tesla greater than the magnetic flux density of P 1 Pa, P 1 Pa, P 1 Pb and P 1 C forming a first pole tip and having a surface disk-facing surface; (b) a second ferromagnetic pole piece over the first pole piece and having a second pole tip having a surface substantially coplanar with said first pole tip surface; (c) an electrically conductive coil structure between the first and second pole pieces; and (d) a nonmagnetic gap layer between the first and second pole tips and having a front edge substantially coplanar with said first and second pole tip surfaces; and a protective film comprising carbon formed on the disk-facing surface of the slider and having a thickness less than about 5 nm.