A magnetoresistive element comprises an exchange
coupling film having a under layer, an antiferromagnetic film and a ferromagnetic film, which are laminated in that order, the under layer including a
metal having a face centered cubic
crystal structure or hexagonal closest packing
crystal structure which have a longer nearest neighbor atomic distance than that of the antiferromagnetic film. With this construction, it is possible to improve the exchange
coupling field and to satisfy a stable output over a long period of time. A magnetoresistive element having a dual
spin valve structure has a
magnetization adjusting layer, which is antiferromagnetically connected to a pinned layer via an anti-parallel connection layer, to adjust the value of the product of the saturation
magnetization of each of the
magnetization adjusting layer and the pinned layer by the thickness thereof. Moreover, a
magnetoresistance head use a
giant magnetoresistance effect, and has at least one pair of pinned layer and free layer arranged via a non-magnetic spacer layer. The pinned layer has a pair of ferromagnetic
layers which have different compositions and different coercive forces and which are antiferromagnetically connected to each other via a connection layer, so that the effective exchange
coupling field of the pinned layer is 200 Oe or more.