Patent ID: 6969989

Claim:
A method for characterizing a portion of a writing pole of a perpendicular magnetic write head in proximity to a magnetic medium, the portion of the writing pole having a generally trapezoidal shape with a leading edge, a trailing edge, a first side edge which intersects the leading edge and the trailing edge, and a second side edge which intersects the leading edge and the trailing edge, the method comprising: providing measured track width data corresponding to magnetic track widths of a plurality of tracks written by the writing pole on a rotating magnetic medium underlying the writing pole, the magnetic track widths varying as a function of skew angle of the writing pole during writing; determining a magnetic width of the wider of the leading edge and the trailing edge of the writing pole from a first portion of the measured track width data, the first portion corresponding to a first range of skew angles; and determining at least one magnetic taper angle of the writing pole from the measured track width data.