Spintronics, Magnetoresistive Heads, and the Emergence of the Digital World

The development of spintronics has had a dramatic impact on the evolution of the magnetic hard disk drive and, in turn, on the ubiquitous nature of digital data in modern society. The advent of the magnetoresistive read head technology transitioning from the anisotropic magnetoresistance read head to the spintronics-based giant-magnetoresistance read head and the tunneling magnetoresistance read head were major drivers in this remarkable increase in digital storage. We will review the development of magnetoresistive read head technologies and their impact on digital data storage. We will then highlight the current state-of-the-art sensor and potential future technologies.