Effect of stress induced anisotropy on SAL-biased MR head performance

The effect of magnetostriction (MS) on the device characteristics of soft-adjacent-layer (SAL) biased magnetoresistive (MR) head was investigated. As MS changes from -7/spl times/10/sup -7/ to 1.77/spl times/10/sup -6/, the magnetic track width increases from 1.26 to 1.83 /spl mu/m. Asymmetry of bias point, output sensitivity, and output amplitude are also affected by the stress induced anisotropy. The variation of magnetostriction (/spl Delta//spl lambda/=2/spl times/10/sup -6/) induces the change in bias field by 60 Oe associated with the estimated stress of +800 MPa on the MR stripe.