Patent ID: 8248894

Claim:
A thermally assisted magnetic head comprising a main magnetic pole layer having a magnetic pole end face arranged within a medium-opposing surface opposing a magnetic recording medium; a near-field light generating layer having a generating end part arranged within the medium-opposing surface, the generating end part generating near-field light for heating the magnetic recording medium; and an optical waveguide guiding light to the near-field light generating layer, wherein the near-field light generating layer has a near-field light generating part in a triangle shape with the generating end part being one vertex, and is formed in a triangle pole shape extending from the medium-opposing surface in a depth direction intersecting with the medium-opposing surface, wherein the optical waveguide is formed to be opposed to a ridge part of the near-field light generating layer via an interposed layer, the ridge part extending from the generating end part in the depth direction, wherein the magnetic pole end face of the main magnetic pole layer is formed to be opposed to the generating end part via the interposed layer, on a side closer to the medium-opposing surface than is the optical waveguide, and wherein the thermally assisted magnetic head comprises a heat radiating layer in contact with an opposite side of the near-field light generating layer from the optical waveguide.