Magneto-Resistive And Spin Valve Heads. Fundamentals And Applications, 2nd Edition

The second edition of Magneto-Resistive and Spin Valve Heads: Fundamentals and Applications brings the book vastly up to date, including much new material that was virtually unknown at the time of the first edition. The book begins with chapters covering the basics of magnetism, magnetic materials, and the writing and inductive reading processes, as well as the anisotropic and giant magneto-resistive effects. The following chapters cover methods used to produce the necessary magnetic biasing fields, the behavior of shielded single-element magneto-resistive heads, and giant magneto-resistive spin valves. The last few chapters deal with the design and performance of anisotropic and giant magnetoresistive heads (AMRHs and GMRHs, respectively) and consider the likely future of colossal magneto-resistive and electron spin tunneling heads. Almost all the AMRH material found in the first edition has been retained, but it has been extensively revised and edited in order to make it relevant to the present-day applications of AMRHs in high-density digital tape recording. Likely designs of giant magneto-resistive spin valves for operation at 100 gigabit/in.2 in hard disk drives are discussed. An appendix provides a listing of the defining equations and a table of conversion factors for cgs-emu and MKS-SI magnetic units. The material in the book is presented in essentially a nonmathematical manner. The lack of mathematics should not lead the reader to suppose that this is an elementary exposition. Indeed, the aim is to lead the reader in a straightforward fashion to a high level of scientific understanding of magneto-resistive materials and heads, which are now used in every hard disk drive, as well as in digital tape drives for both computer and consumer applications. The book is intended as a basic reference for electrical engineering students and individuals working in the recording and information storage industries.