nife 10 formed to a thickness between 5 and 80 angstroms with approximately 35 angstroms being preferred this layer can be alloyed with other materials such as co nb zr and b on the tri layered free layer there is then formed a capping layer 60 which can be a four layer composite layer of cu 30 ru 10 ta 60 ru 10 in which the cu layer 62 is formed to a thickness between approximately 5 and 50 angstroms with approximately 30 angstroms being preferred the first ru layer 64 is formed to a thickness between approximately 5 and 30 angstroms with approximately 10 angstroms being preferred the ta layer 66 is formed to a thickness between approximately 10 and 80 angstroms with approximately 60 angstroms being preferred and the second ru layer 68 is formed to a thickness between approximately 5 and 50 angstroms with approximately 10 angstroms being preferred this four layer capping layer has been found to improve the gmr ratio and to facilitate processing as already noted in the description of the tmr sensor the magnetostriction properties of the ccp cpp gmr sensor can also be adjusted by varying the thicknesses or fe percentages of the layers forming the composite free layer it should in fact be noted that fe percentages between 5 and 90 are permissable in the free and pinned layers and will meet the objects of the invention referring finally to fig3 there is shown a cpp gmr sensor formed in accord with the present invention in which the ccp layer described above is omitted in all other respects the structure and formation of.