Brian S. Zak

Design and performance of a recessed thin film inductive transducer

An improved inductive transducer is achieved by placing the coil and the majority of the transducer body into a recessed alumina basecoat. Process advantages of a recessed over planar structure includes lower top pole topography, improved pole trim capability, and improved top pole composition uniformity. Coil and photoresist processing in a recessed cavity allows for multiple layers with lower resistance without increasing transducer Permalloy path length. Recessed trimmed design performance has increased efficiency with higher amplitude and a narrower pulse width along with improved overwrite compared to planar untrimmed transducers. The recessed basecoat design is explained, and compared to planar transducers using modeling and performance results.