Recording Performance and Noise Properties of a Single-Pole Head with an Fe-Si-N Main Pole

Many papers have discussed Fe-N films owing to the material's high saturation magnetic flux density and permeability. However, there have been few studies of the read-write characteristics of this material. We have already drawn attention to the remarkably large head noise induced in this film in a single-pole head. In search of a way of eliminating this disadvantage, we investigated the film deposition conditions. As a result, we found that the stress and magnetostriction of the film must be controlled in order to suppress head noise and achieve high readout sensitivity. We also determined the optimum ranges of the stress and magnetostriction. Both a high permeability and a low head noise were obtained from films deposited under these specific conditions. An improvement in the overwrite characteristics was also confirmed.