Thermal engineering of giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors: Alternative dielectric gap

A systematic study of alternative dielectric gap materials to reduce the self-heating problem in giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors was presented. It was found that the peak temperature rise was not a linear function of gap thermal resistance due to competition between heat conduction across the dielectric gap and heat spreading along the sensor/lead. Future recording heads were expected to employ dielectric gap layers of thickness smaller than 100 A as the gap thermal resistance will be dominated by the thermal boundary resistance.