Analysis of the Read-out Characteristics of a Front-Yoke Stacked-Type TMR Head for Perpendicular Magnetic Recording

摘要

A tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) element with a magnetic tunneling junction has the advantage of a large MR ratio compared with a GMR element, and has high potential for applications such as magnetic random access memory and magnetic read heads for high-density recording. This paper describes the design and performance of yoke-type read heads with the TMR element. Magnetic field calculations were carried out for a front-yoke stacked-type TMR head. The head has the advantage of a higher signal-to-noise ratio than that of a shielded TMR head, and produces Lorentzian waveforms without any distortion in combination with perpendicular magnetic recording media.