Magnetic read head with separately addressable read transducers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9418684-B2
Application number	US-201314046487-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 4, 2013
Priority date	Oct 4, 2013
Publication date	Aug 16, 2016
Grant date	Aug 16, 2016

Abstract

A read head with at least two separately addressable read transducers that are coplanar in a cross track direction. The read transducers have a cross track width, w r , and a center-to-center separation distance between the two read transducers either greater than 3w r or the distance of two tracks of an associated medium in the cross track direction.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A read head, comprising: separately addressable transducers, all of the separately addressable transducers are disposed on the same physical plane and coplanar in a cross track direction, and all of the separately addressable transducers having a cross track width, w r , and a center-to-center separation distance between immediately adjacent transducers greater than or equal to about 3w r , in the cross track direction.

2. The read head of claim 1 , wherein the transducers are configured for operation with a magnetic medium and the separation distance between the immediately adjacent transducers is at least two track widths of the magnetic medium.

3. The read head of claim 1 , wherein the separation distance is greater than about 100 nm.

4. The read head of claim 1 , wherein each transducer has an air bearing surface (ABS) and a first surface adjoining the ABS along the cross track direction, and further comprising electrical contacts disposed respectively along first surfaces of the transducers and the electrical contacts are coplanar and electrically isolated from one another.

5. The read head of claim 4 , wherein each transducer has a second surface adjoining the ABS along the cross track direction, and further comprising electrical contacts disposed respectively along second surfaces of the transducers and the electrical contacts are coplanar and electrically isolated from one another.

6. The read head of claim 5 , wherein a shield-to-shield spacing between the electrical contacts disposed along the first surfaces of the transducers and the electrical contacts disposed along the second surfaces of the transducers is less than about 25 nm.

7. The read head of claim 5 , wherein an electrically insulating material is disposed between the electrical contacts, and wherein the electrically insulating material comprises at least one of alumina and silicon dioxide.

8. The read head of claim 4 , wherein each read transducer has a second surface adjoining the ABS along the cross track direction, and further comprising an electrically continuous electrical contact disposed along second surfaces of each of the transducers.

9. The read head of claim 1 , further comprising at least two magnetic stabilization elements that are coplanar with the transducers.

10. The read head of claim 9 , wherein the at least two magnetic stabilization elements have a width along the cross track direction greater than about 25 nm and comprise one of permanent magnets and magnetic shields.

11. The read head of claim 1 , wherein the read head comprises at least three of the separately addressable transducers, each of the three transducers having a cross track width, w r , and a center-to-center separation distance between an immediately adjacent one of the transducers greater than or equal to about 3w r , in the cross track direction.

12. The read head of claim 1 , wherein a first transducer and a second transducer of the separately addressable transducers are configured to each be selectively activatable such that the first transducer can be active at a time when the second transducer would be inactive.

13. A system, comprising:
a magnetic medium having data tracks, each data track having a width, w t ; and a magnetic read head comprising separately addressable read transducers, all of the separately addressable read transducers are disposed on the same physical plane and coplanar in a cross track direction, and all of the separately addressable read transducers having a center-to-center separation distance between immediately adjacent read transducers of at least 2w t .

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the width w t is configured such that an integer number of data tracks exist in the center-to-center separation distance between the immediately adjacent read transducers.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein:
the magnetic medium is a continuous magnetic medium disk;
the center-to-center spacing between the data tracks is a non-integer multiple of the separation distance; and
the magnetic medium disk includes one or more non-data tracks, each non-data track disposed between bands of data tracks.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein each non-data track has a width less than w t .

17. The system of claim 13 , wherein the read transducers have a cross track width, w r , and the separation distance is greater than about 3w r .

18. The system of claim 13 , wherein the separation distance is at least one of greater than about 100 nm and at least 25w t .

19. The system of claim 13 , wherein each read transducer has an air bearing surface (ABS) and a first surface adjoining the ABS along the cross track direction, and further comprising electrical contacts respectively disposed along first surfaces of the read transducers, the electrical contacts electrically isolated from one another and each comprising a combined contact configured to provide electrical connectivity and magnetic shielding.

Assignees

• Seagate Technology Llc

Inventors

• Gadbois Jason Bryce
• Mastain Steven A
• Price James K

Classifications

• G11B5/4976

  Disposition of heads, e.g. matrix arrangement · CPC title

• G11B5/3948

  the sensitive elements being active read-out elements · CPC title

• G11B5/4886

  relative to rotating disc · CPC title

• G11B5/29 Primary

  Structure or manufacture of unitary devices formed of plural heads for more than one track {(G11B5/33, G11B5/49 and subgroups take precedence; in thin film structure G11B5/31)} · CPC title

• Y10T29/49048

  Machining magnetic material [e.g., grinding, etching, polishing] · CPC title