Patent ID: 8111591

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 magnetoresistive element that detects a magnetic signal sent from the magnetic recording medium; two reproduction wiring layers that supply the magnetoresistive element with a sense current for detection of the magnetic signal; a coil that produces a magnetic field corresponding to data to be recorded on the magnetic recording medium; two recording wiring layers that supply the coil with a coil current for production of the magnetic field corresponding to the data; a magnetic pole that has an end face located in the medium facing surface, allows a magnetic flux corresponding to the magnetic field produced by the coil to pass, and produces a recording magnetic field for recording the data on the magnetic recording medium; a waveguide that allows propagation of light emitted from the laser diode; a near-field light generating element that has 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 having a top surface, the magnetoresistive element, the reproduction wiring layers, the coil, the recording wiring layers, the magnetic pole, the near field light generating element, and the waveguide being stacked above the top surface of the substrate, wherein: 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; and as viewed in a direction perpendicular to the top surface of the slider, the laser diode does not overlap the two reproduction wiring layers but overlaps at least one of the two recording wiring layers.