to fig2 there is shown the schematic representation of the substrate gmr layer fabrication of fig1 wherein a bi layer lift off stencil for forming the abutted junction has now been formed in accord with methods of the prior art the lift off stencil consists of a lower layer of pmgi polydimethyglutarimide 4 on which has been deposited a layer of photoresist material 6 several of which are well known to practitioners of the prior art using any of several developing solutions known to practitioners of the prior art the photoresist material has been developed to form the shape illustrated and the pmgi has been undercut 8 relative to the photoresist layer by making use of its differential solubility in the said developing solution fig3 shows a schematic illustration of the results of using the bi layer lift off stencil of fig2 as an ion beam milling mask whereupon regions of the gmr layer have been removed 10 and the remaining segment of the gmr layer beneath the mask 12 has been had its edges shaped 14 appropriately to form an abutted junction fig4 shows a schematic illustration of the fabrication of fig3 wherein a conducting lead layer 16 has now been deposited to form the abutted junction 18 the stencil now ready for lift off is shown covered with lead layer residue 20 from the deposition process it should be noted that various magnetic biasing layers may also be deposited along with the conducting lead layer in which case the stencil will serve to shape those depositions as well fig5 a is a schematic representation of the results of using a lift off stencil such as that illustrated in the previous.