The present invention suppresses audio skipping. A frame number acquisition unit 102 acquires a current frame number S11. An audio data acquisition unit 104 acquires an audio data S12 of a current frame. A signal processing unit 110 holds the audio data S12 of the current frame in the sub-buffer 114 when the current frame number S11 is discontinuous with a last normal frame number. The signal processing unit 110 stores the audio data stored in the sub-buffer 114 into the main buffer 112 and sets it as a reproduction object, if the current frame number S11 matches an expected value S14 before audio data of N frames is stored in the sub-buffer 114, where N is a predetermined value.

The present invention relates a method of producing a data storage medium comprising the steps of: a) coating a layer comprising a polymer material onto at least a part of a template surface thereby to obtain a modified template surface; b) clamping the modified template surface produced in step (a) with a target surface thereby to obtain an assembly; and c) introducing a liquid to an environment of the assembly obtained in step (b) thereby to transfer the layer comprising the polymer material of the modified template surface onto at least an adjacent region on the target surface.

An apparatus comprises a slider having a trailing edge and a leading edge. A laser diode unit comprises a submount and a laser diode mounted to the submount. The submount includes a mounting surface affixed to a first surface of the slider at the trailing edge such that a first surface of the submount faces toward the leading edge of the slider. A thermally conductive material covers the first surface of the submount and at least a portion of the first surface of the slider. The thermally conductive material serves as a thermal conduction pathway between the submount and the slider.

Provided herein is an apparatus including a substrate and a magnetic recording layer over the substrate. In addition, a thermochromic layer is over the substrate, wherein the thermochromic layer includes a first optical absorbance at a first temperature and a second optical absorbance at a second temperature.

Devices having air bearing surfaces (ABS), the devices include a near field transducer (NFT) that includes a disc configured to convert photons incident thereon into plasmons; and a peg configured to couple plasmons coupled from the disc into an adjacent magnetic storage medium, wherein the disc includes a disc material and the peg includes a peg material, wherein the disc material is different from the peg material and wherein the disc material has a first real part of the permittivity and a peg material has a second real part of the permittivity and the second real part of the permittivity is not greater than the first real part of the permittivity.

For each head in a collection of heat-assisted magnetic recording read/write heads, a reader width and a writer width is measured. A predicted life is determined for each head based on the respective reader width and writer width. In a first set of drives having relatively fewer heads per drive, a first subset of the heads having a higher value of the predicted life are used. In a second set of drives having relatively more heads per drive, a second subset of the heads having a lower value of the predicted life are used.

A three dimensional magnetic recording media can consist of a coupling layer disposed between first and second vertically stacked recording layers. The coupling layer can provide exchange or antiferromagnetic coupling and allow the respective recording layers to be individually heat selected to different first and second coupling strengths through application of heat from a heat source.

A heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) medium includes a substrate, a bi-layer, a heat-sink layer, and a magnetic-recording layer. The bi-layer includes a seed layer disposed on the substrate, and a thermal-transport-control layer (TTCL) disposed on seed layer. The heat-sink layer is disposed on the TTCL; and the magnetic-recording layer is disposed on the heat-sink layer. The bi-layer is configured to enable use of a 50% thinner heat-sink layer that allows use of a reduced operating current of a laser in HAMR write operations while maintaining about the same write performance parameters as a HAMR medium that includes a thermal-barrier layer (TBL) and twice as thick heat-sink layer. A HAMR data-storage device that incorporates the HAMR medium within a HAMR disk, and a method for making the HAMR medium are also described.

A heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) write apparatus has a media-facing surface (MFS) and includes a pole, coil(s) and a waveguide. The waveguide is optically coupled with a laser and directs energy toward the MFS. The waveguide includes an entrance, a bottom and a mode converter having a core, an inner cladding, high index layer(s) and an outer cladding. The core has sides that diverge in width. The core has a first index of refraction. The outer cladding has a second index of refraction less than the first index of refraction. The inner cladding has a third index of refraction not greater than the second index of refraction. The inner cladding is between the high index layer(s) and the core. The high index layer(s) are between the inner and outer cladding. The high index layer(s) have a high index of refraction greater than the second index of refraction.

According to one embodiment, a disk device includes a disk includes a recording layer, a recording head includes a main pole configured to apply a recording magnetic field onto the recording layer, and a microwave oscillator adjacent to the main pole, configured to apply a microwave magnetic field to the recording layer, a current supply circuit configured to supply a current to the microwave oscillator, and a switching circuit configured to switch a direction of current flow to the microwave oscillator.