Electroplated laminated Cu-NiFe films from a single plating bath for inductive recording heads and magnetic shields

The edge-closure domains in the thin film permalloy in magnetic thin film heads can result in noise and instabilities. This becomes more significant as the track width decreases. Lamination with non-magnetic spacers can eliminate edge-closure domains. An electroplating technique is described in which magnetic layers are laminated by non-magnetic layers, insitu, from a bath containing Cu, Ni and Fe elements by an appropriate choice of current pulses. As few as two magnetic and one non-magnetic and as many as 40 magnetic and 39 non-magnetic layers have been deposited with 2 μm of magnetic material. Such films show no classical edge closure domains.