Implementations disclosed and claimed herein include a method of write head core located in a slider, the write head core comprising a first end operative to serve as a write pole, a second end operative to serve as a return pole, wherein the first end comprises a substantially smaller cross-sectional area than the second end, and wherein the write head core has a substantially smooth curvature.

A manufacturing method of a write portion for a thermally assisted magnetic head slider includes providing a write portion including a write element, a waveguide, and a plasmon unit; lapping opposed-to-magnetic recording medium surfaces of the write element and the waveguide, and an near-field light generating surface of the plasmon unit; only forming a carbon layer on the opposed-to-magnetic recording medium surface of the write element. Corrosive elements in the write portion can be prevented from being corroded and the write element can be prevented from being worn and abraded not only, stable thermal ability for a plasmon unit can be maintained but also.

The implementations disclosed herein allow for formation of a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor shield that shields against both down track and cross-track interference. The shield can be formed in a single deposition step. In one implementation of the disclosed technology, a tail portion of the shield is eliminated by including a non-magnetic material adjacent to opposite sides of a middle portion of the sensor stack.