Optical head and optical recording/reproducing apparatus

Abstract

Certain embodiments provide an optical recording/reproducing apparatus including: a slider that has a medium facing surface that faces an optical recording medium, and moves along a recording/reproducing face of the optical recording/reproducing medium; a metal nanoparticle structure that is provided in the medium facing surface of the slider; a light illumination device that illuminates the optical recording medium and the metal nanoparticle structure with light that has polarization components in a direction perpendicular to the recording/reproducing face; and a detection device that detects Rayleigh scattering light that is generated from a portion of the optical recording medium and is intensified by the metal nanoparticle structure, the portion being located close to the metal nanoparticle structure.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.