抄録
The thermal behavior of a shielded magnetoresistive (MR) head was studied by using the three-dimensional finite element method. The calculation results show that the joule heat generated in the track region of the MR element is mainly carried in the direction of the shield layers. The temperature rise in the shielded MR head is much lower than in an unshielded one. Increasing the thermal conductivity of the shield layers is effective for reducing the temperature rise, with increase in the sense current density. As the track region size decreases, the heat radiation efficiency decreases. Therefore,it is important to improve the thermal conduction to the shield layers in order to reduce the temperature rise fo rshielded MR heads.
