Thermally assisted magnetic recording (TAR) will overcome "superparamagnetic limit" and enable the recording density beyond 1 Tb/in^2 in HDD. TAR is a technique for nano-bit recording that nano-size area on medium is heated by an optical near field during the writing process to reduce the coercivity, and requires a light delivery mechanics from a laser diode (LD) to the optical near field transducer. We proposed a new light delivery mechanics for TAR using a submount, and prototyped Si-submount with Si-MEMS technique and the head gimbal assemblies using it. We confirmed that the fly-ability was not influenced by the laser unit. We also measured the laser power around outlet of laser unit in slider flying on a glass disk, and estimated the temperature rise of LD. This result coincides with the expected one in thermal calculation. These results of the feasibility studies show that our light delivery mechanics is a promising technique to put TAR into a practical use.
