Microfocal lens for energy-assisted magnetic recording technology

In this Letter an original method is proposed to assist optical coupling in energy-assisted magnetic recording systems by introducing a microfocal lens. Simulation results show that the lens effectively reduces the incident light spot size to subwavelength scale, which benefits the magnetic recording density. The proposed microfocal lens can be manufactured at low cost because its fabrication is compatible with the conventional magnetic read/write head process.