Method of improving the reliability of magnetic head sensors by ion milling smoothing

1. Technical Field A method is provided of smoothing the perturbations on a surface, in particular the surface of a magnetic head slider, the method comprising several steps. At least one air-bearing surface to be smoothed is exposed to an ion species generated from a defined source to form a beam of incident radiation. The beam has a linear axis emanating from the source and thus forms an angle of incident radiation with respect to the surface to be smoothed. The at least one surface is smoothed by exposing the surface(s) to be smoothed to the beam of incident radiation, where the angle of incident radiation is less than 90° relative to a vertical axis drawn perpendicular to the surface to be smoothed. To make a corrosion resistant magnetic head slider, the method further comprises coating the smoothed surface with a layer of amorphous carbon.