Patent ID: 8526274

Claim:
A thermally assisted magnetic recording device comprising: a disk that records information; and a thermally assisted magnetic recording head integrally formed with a slider flying over the rotating disk, wherein the thermally assisted magnetic recording head includes: a main magnetic pole; a coil that is configured to generate a magnetic field from the main magnetic pole; a read element; a near-field transducer provided in the vicinity of the main magnetic pole; a waveguide that is configured to guide light to the near-field transducer; and an actuator that is configured to control the flying height, wherein the thermally assisted magnetic recording device further includes: a temperature sensor that is configured to measure the temperature in the vicinity of the near-field transducer, wherein the temperature sensor is positioned adjacent to the near-field transducer without the coil or read element being between the temperature sensor and the near-field transducer; a table that is configured to store the relationship between temperature and amount of deformation in the vicinity of the near-field transducer; and a control unit, wherein the control unit is configured to calculate the amount of deformation, based on the temperature measured by the temperature sensor, and on the relationship between temperature and amount of deformation stored in the table; wherein the control unit is configured to drive the actuator according to the obtained amount of deformation to control the distance between the thermally assisted magnetic recording head and the disk, in order to avoid contact between the thermally assisted magnetic recording head and the disk.