A thermal head having a heat-generating resistor layer, a power feeding conductor layer, and a protective layer superposed on an electrically insulating layer, acquires improved quality by forming the heat-generating resistor layer with an alloy consisting of tantalum, a high-melting metal, and nitrogen. The thermal head of improved quality is produced by spattering a composite target consisting of tantalum and the high-melting metal in a mixed gas consisting of nitrogen and argon.The high-melting metal is at least one member selected from the group consisting of titanium, zirconium, hafnium, vanadium, niobium, chromium, molybdenum, and tungsten.