Patent ID: 8184507

Claim:
A thermally-assisted recording (TAR) head structure for a magnetic recording disk drive comprising: a slider having a disk-facing surface, a top surface opposite to and generally parallel to said disk-facing surface, a front end, a trailing end and two sides, the slider having a height defined generally by the distance between the disk-facing surface and the top surface and a length defined generally by the distance between the front and trailing ends; a laser diode comprising a semiconductor substrate having first and second generally parallel surfaces defining a length greater than 300 μm, the laser radiation beam being output from said second surface in a linear path orthogonal to said second surface, and contact pads on said first surface; a carrier connected to the contact pads on said first surface of the semiconductor substrate and attached to the front end of the slider, the carrier and connected laser diode being located substantially within a region bounded by upper and lower surfaces generally parallel with the slider top and disk-facing surfaces, respectively, the laser diode being connected to the slider's front end and extending along a side of the slider with the laser's linear radiation beam path being in a direction from the slider front end to the slider trailing end; and a body of material transparent to the laser radiation and attached to the trailing end of the slider, the body having an input surface for receipt of laser radiation output from the laser diode, an output surface near the slider trailing end, and at least one reflective surface for reflecting the laser radiation from the input surface to the output surface.