Micromagnetic modeling of overlaid exchange-biased giant magnetoresistance head

Abstract

Overlaid exchange-biased structures for giant magnetoresistance head have been proposed and investigated. A home-developed three-dimensional micromagnetic modeling tool has been used to simulate synthetic antiferromagnetic spin valves of this type of biased structure with dimensions of 100 nm in width and 80 nm in height. Simulation results showed that, with a properly chosen antiferromagnetic material and structure, the exchange-biasing field could be made sufficient to suppress the noise without severely reducing the sensitivity. The sensitivity of overlaid exchange-biased spin valves is 1.73 times that of the abutted hard biased ones. Microtrack profiles showed that side reading effect could be suppressed effectively with an effective exchange-biasing field over 600 Oe. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.