Patent ID: 8867169

Claim:
A magnetic head for perpendicular magnetic recording, 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 main pole that has an end face located in the medium facing surface, the main pole allowing a magnetic flux that corresponds to the magnetic field produced by the coil to pass, and producing a write magnetic field for writing the data on the recording medium by means of a perpendicular magnetic recording system; a magnetic structure made of a magnetic material and incorporating a write shield; and a gap part made of a nonmagnetic material and interposed between the main pole and the write shield, wherein: the write shield has an end face located in the medium facing surface; the magnetic structure is formed to include a first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer stacked on the first magnetic layer, and a seed layer having electrical conductivity; the first magnetic layer has a front end face located in the medium facing surface and a top surface facing toward the second magnetic layer; the second magnetic layer has a front end face located in the medium facing surface and a bottom surface facing toward the first magnetic layer; the top surface of the first magnetic layer includes a first region including an end located in the medium facing surface and a second region that is located farther from the medium facing surface than is the first region; the seed layer is not present on the first region of the top surface of the first magnetic layer but is present on the second region of the top surface of the first magnetic layer; and the bottom surface of the second magnetic layer includes a first region in contact with the first region of the top surface of the first magnetic layer and a second region in contact with the seed layer.