Patent ID: 7876646

Claim:
A thermally assisted magnetic head comprising: a slider substrate having a medium-facing surface, a first surface located opposite to the medium-facing surface, and side surfaces located between the medium-facing surface and the first surface; a magnetic head portion having a near-field light generator on the medium-facing surface side, and a magnetic recording element located in proximity to the near-field light generator, the magnetic head portion being fixed to one of the side surfaces of the slider substrate; and a laser diode element a relative position of which to the slider substrate is fixed so that emitted light thereof can reach the near-field light generator; wherein a relation of λin<λmax is satisfied, where λin is a wavelength of the emitted light from the laser diode element immediately before the emitted light reaches the near-field light generator, and λmax is a wavelength of irradiating light at which an efficiency of generation of near-field light generated from the near-field light generator is maximum when the near-field light generator is irradiated with the irradiating light.