Patent ID: 7414816

Claim:
A thin film magnetic head comprising: a substrate with a plurality of thin film structures formed on a surface of the substrate, a plane of the thin film structures being parallel to the surface of the substrate and perpendicular to a thickness of the thin film structures with the thickness being a smallest dimension of the thin film structures; an air-bearing surface that is parallel to the plane of the thin film structures, the air-bearing surface being bounded by cut surfaces extending perpendicular to the air-bearing surface; and a read head with a sensor comprising a plurality of thin films including a free layer of ferromagnetic material, the free layer being formed from a ferromagnetic thin film deposited on the surface of the substrate with a thickness of the ferromagnetic thin film being disposed orthogonally to the air-bearing surface with the sensor being disposed on the air-bearing surface with none of the cut surfaces passing through the free layer; and wherein the read head further comprises first and second hard magnetic contiguous junction bias structures disposed with first and second contiguous junctions with the sensor, the first and second contiguous junctions being on opposing ends of the sensor, the opposing ends of the sensor being separated by a longest dimension of the sensor.