Scanning magneto-resistance microscopy with FIB trimmed yoke-type magneto-resistive tape heads

Scanning magneto-resistance microscopy has been performed with thin film yoke-type magneto-resistive tape heads possessing eight channels. The read flux guides of these channels have been trimmed down from 24 μm to widths varying between 5.5 μm and 148 nm by focused ion beam milling with Ga+ ions. Tracks written on ME tape with an untrimmed write channel have been successfully imaged with all the trimmed channels. A significant attenuation (>5%) of read-back voltage across the MR sensor is only observed for channels possessing flux guides trimmed by 77% to 5.5 μm. A 52% (6 dB) drop in read-back voltage is observed for a channel possessing a flux guide trimmed by 99.4% to 148 nm.