Oliff & Berridge, PLC
Method of manufacturing near-field light generating element and method of manufacturing heat-assisted magnetic recording head
A near-field light generating element has an outer surface including first and second inclined surfaces and an edge part that connects the first and second inclined surfaces to each other. In a method of manufacturing the near-field light generating element, a polishing stopper layer is initially formed on a metal layer, and the polishing stopper layer and the metal layer are etched so that the metal layer is provided with the first inclined surface. Next, a coating layer is formed to cover the metal layer and the polishing stopper layer. The coating layer is made of a non-metallic inorganic material that has an etching rate lower than that of the metal layer in a second etching step to be performed later. Next, the coating layer is polished until the polishing stopper layer is exposed. Next, the second etching step is performed to etch the polishing stopper layer and the metal layer using the coating layer as the etching mask. This provides the metal layer with the second inclined surface and the edge part, and thereby makes the metal layer into the near-field light generating element.
Headway Technologies, Inc.
G B G G
G11B B24B G11B G11B
inventional inventional inventional additional
Shigeki Hiroyuki Hironori Yoshitaka
Tanemura Ito Araki Sasaki