Patent ID: 8456968

Claim:
A thermally-assisted magnetic recording head comprising: a medium facing surface that faces a recording medium; a main pole that produces a write magnetic field for writing data on the recording medium; a waveguide including a core through which light propagates, and a cladding that surrounds the core; and a plasmon generator configured to excite a surface plasmon through coupling with evanescent light that occurs from the core based on the light propagating through the core, wherein the plasmon generator and the main pole are disposed to align along a direction of travel of the recording medium, the thermally-assisted magnetic recording head further comprising: a first heat sink layer having two portions that are located on opposite sides of the plasmon generator in a track width direction; a second heat sink layer having two portions that are located on opposite sides of the main pole in the track width direction; and a nonmagnetic layer disposed between the plasmon generator and the main pole, wherein: the first and second heat sink layers are each made of SiC or AlN; and the nonmagnetic layer is made of a material that is lower in thermal conductivity at 25° C. than alumina.