Patent ID: 8173028

Claim:
A manufacturing method for a magnetic head for perpendicular magnetic recording, the magnetic head comprising: a medium facing surface that faces a recording medium; a coil that produces a magnetic field corresponding to data to be written on the recording medium; a pole layer that has an end face located in the medium facing surface, allows a magnetic flux corresponding to the magnetic field produced by the coil to pass and produces a write magnetic field for writing the data on the recording medium by means of a perpendicular magnetic recording system; a top shield that is made of a magnetic material and has an end face located in the medium facing surface at a position forward of the end face of the pole layer along a direction of travel of the recording medium; a gap layer that is made of a nonmagnetic material, disposed between the pole layer and the top shield and has an end face located in the medium facing surface; a first side shield and a second side shield disposed on both sides of the pole layer that are opposite to each other in a track width direction, each of the side shields being made of a magnetic material and having an end face located in the medium facing surface; and an encasing layer that is made of a nonmagnetic material and has a first groove accommodating the pole layer, a second groove accommodating the first side shield, and a third groove accommodating the second side shield, the manufacturing method comprising the steps of: forming a nonmagnetic layer that is to become the encasing layer through formation of the first to third grooves therein later; forming an etching mask layer on the nonmagnetic layer, the etching mask layer having a first opening, a second opening and a third opening that have shapes corresponding to respective planar shapes of the first, second and third grooves to be formed later; forming the first to third grooves in the nonmagnetic layer by etching using the etching mask layer so that the nonmagnetic layer becomes the encasing layer; forming the pole layer; forming the first and second side shields; forming the gap layer; forming the top shield; and forming the coil, wherein: the step of forming the first to third grooves includes the steps of: forming the first groove by etching the nonmagnetic layer using the first opening, with the second and third openings covered with a first mask; and forming the second and third grooves by etching the nonmagnetic layer using the second and third openings, with the first opening covered with a second mask.