A magnetic head includes a medium facing surface that faces a surface of a recording medium, a write head section, a
contact sensor that detects contact of the medium facing surface with the surface of the recording medium, and a
heat sink adjacent to the
contact sensor. The write head section has a magnetic pole that produces a write
magnetic field for writing data on the recording medium. The
contact sensor and the
heat sink have respective end faces located in the medium facing surface. The contact sensor varies in resistance in response to temperature variations, and is to be energized. The
heat sink includes an intermediate layer made of a nonmagnetic
metal material, and two ferromagnetic
layers made of a
metal-based magnetic material, the two ferromagnetic
layers being disposed with the intermediate layer therebetween, and being antiferromagnetically exchange-coupled to each other via the intermediate layer.