Patent ID: 8116173

Claim:
A heat-assisted magnetic recording head comprising a slider, and an edge-emitting laser diode fixed to the slider, the slider comprising: a medium facing surface that faces a magnetic 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 magnetic 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 that propagates 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 substrate has a top surface facing toward the magnetic pole, the near-field light generating element and the waveguide; the slider has a top surface that lies at an end above the top surface of the substrate; 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 bottom surface that lies at an end in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the active layer, the laser diode being arranged so that the bottom surface faces the top surface of the slider; the waveguide has an outer surface, the outer surface including an incident end face that is opposed to the emission part of the laser diode, and a bottom surface that is closer to the top surface of the substrate; the slider further comprises an overcoat layer that covers the outer surface of the waveguide excluding the incident end face and the bottom surface; the overcoat layer has an end face that faces the emitting end face of the laser diode; the emitting end face of the laser diode is positioned to leave a gap from the incident end face of the waveguide and the end face of the overcoat layer; and as viewed in a direction perpendicular to the top surface of the slider, the end face of the overcoat layer has a convex shape protruding toward the emitting end face of the laser diode so that a part of the end face of the overcoat layer lying over the incident end face of the waveguide comes closest to the emitting end face of the laser diode.