Thermally-assisted magnetic recording head including a main pole and a plasmon generator

Abstract

A thermally-assisted magnetic recording head includes a main pole and a plasmon generator. The plasmon generator includes a first material portion and a second material portion formed of different materials. The first material portion is located away from the medium facing surface. The second material portion includes a near-field light generating surface. The main pole has a front end face including a first end face portion and a second end face portion. The near-field light generating surface, the first end face portion and the second end face portion are arranged in this order along the direction of travel of a recording medium.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a thermally-assisted magnetic recording head for use in thermally-assisted magnetic recording to write data on a recording medium with the coercivity thereof lowered by irradiating the recording medium with near-field light.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Recently, magnetic recording devices such as magnetic disk drives have been improved in recording density, and thin-film magnetic heads and recording media of improved performance have been demanded accordingly. Among the thin-film magnetic heads, a composite thin-film magnetic head has been used widely. The composite thin-film magnetic head has such a structure that a read head unit including a magnetoresistive element (hereinafter, also referred to as MR element) for reading and a write head unit including an induction-type electromagnetic transducer for writing are stacked on a substrate. In a magnetic disk drive, the th...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is about a new type of thermally-assisted magnetic recording head and its manufacturing method. The invention improves the reliability of the plasmon generator, aligns the plasmon generator and the main pole, and allows for a desired sizing of the width of the main pole without limitations imposed by the width of the plasmon generator. The plasmon generator has a first material portion and a second material portion, with the first portion located away from the medium facing surface. The second material portion includes the near-field light generating surface. By adjusting the space between the end faces of the first and second surrounding layers, the invention allows for precise alignment of the near-field light generating surface and the first end face with each other, and also allows for a desired sizing of the width of the first end face without limitations imposed by the width of the near-field light generating surface. This results in a more effective read / write process due to the improved reliability of the plasmon generator and precise alignment of the components.

Problems solved by technology

Making the magnetic fine particles smaller, however, disadvantageously reduces the thermal stability of magnetization of the magnetic fine particles.

However, increasing the anisotropic energy of the magnetic fine particles leads to an increase in coercivity of the recording medium, and this makes it difficult to perform data writing with existing magnetic heads.

This results in the problem of deformation or breakage of the plasmon generator, thus shortening the life of the thermally-assisted magnetic recording head.

When employing this technique, however, any attempts to reduce the track width would result in a reduction in the width of the end face of the main pole, and this would cause the main pole to become unable to pass much magnetic flux and thus unable to produce a write magnetic field of sufficient magnitude from its end face.

A further problem with the aforementioned technique is that it is difficult to permit a desired sizing of the width of the end face of the main pole without limitations imposed by the width of the end face of the plasmon generator.

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