Patent ID: 9741374
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: G11B

Claim:
1. A thermally-assisted magnetic recording head comprising: a head body having a medium facing surface configured to face a magnetic recording medium; and a protective film covering the medium facing surface, wherein the head body includes: the plurality of head components include a main pole for producing a write magnetic field, a waveguide, and a plasmon generator, the waveguide has an exit end face located in the medium facing surface and an entrance end face opposite to the exit end face, and is configured to allow excitation light having entered the entrance end face to propagate through the waveguide and exit from the exit end face, the plasmon generator has a near-field light generating surface located in the medium facing surface, and is configured to excite, on the plasmon generator, a surface plasmon resulting from the excitation light propagating through the waveguide, and to generate near-field light from the surface plasmon at the near-field light generating surface, the medium facing surface includes a first region and a second region, the first region includes neither of the exit end face and the near-field light generating surface, the second region includes the exit end face and the near-field light generating surface, the protective film includes a first portion covering the first region and a second portion covering the second region, the first portion and the second portion are different from each other in at least one of thickness and material configuration, and the at least one main light-blocking section is lower in transmittance for light of any wavelength within the range of 10 to 900 nm than the waveguide and the insulating section, and is located to intersect at least one imaginary straight line connecting the entrance end face and the first region.