Patent ID: 8406089

Claim:
A heat-assisted magnetic recording head comprising a slider, an edge-emitting laser diode fixed to the slider, and an external mirror provided outside the slider, the slider comprising: a medium facing surface that faces a recording medium; a magnetic pole that has an end face located in the medium facing surface and produces a recording magnetic field for recording data on the recording medium; a waveguide that allows light to propagate therethrough; a near-field light generating element having a near-field light generating part located in the medium facing surface, a surface plasmon being excited based on the light propagating through the waveguide, the surface plasmon propagating to the near-field light generating part, the near-field light generating part generating near-field light based on the surface plasmon; and a substrate on which the magnetic pole, the near-field light generating element and the waveguide are stacked, wherein: the laser diode includes: an active layer; an emitting end face that lies at an end in a direction parallel to a plane of the active layer and includes an emission part for emitting laser light; and a mounting surface that lies at an end in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the active layer and faces the slider; and the external mirror includes: a first reference surface that is parallel to the emitting end face and faces the emitting end face; a second reference surface that is parallel to the mounting surface and faces toward the same direction as the mounting surface does; and a reflecting surface that is oblique with respect to each of the first reference surface and the second reference surface, connects the first reference surface and the second reference surface to each other, and reflects the laser light emitted from the emission part toward the waveguide.