US Patent 7224644 Head arrangement for domain expansion magnetic amplifying magneto-optical system

A head arrangement for reading a magneto-optical recording medium (10) having a storage layer and a read-out layer, includes an improved field generating device for generating a magnetic field used for copying a written mark from said storage layer to said read-out layer upon laser heating, the field generating device being arranged to generate a predetermined field gradient and/or a predetermined local maximum in a field component perpendicular to the surface of the recording medium (10). The width of the spatial overlap can thus be reduced such that an improved resolution and/or power margin is obtained.