Abstract: A heat assisted magnetic recording disk drive comprises a magnetic recording media with a heat sink layer including at least a material being defined by the general structure Mn+1AXn, wherein M is a transition metal, A is an A-group element, X is C or N or a mixture of C and N, and n is a positive integer, or a material defined by the general structure Mn+1AXn, wherein M is a transition metal, X is one or both of C and N, and n is a positive integer, or a mixture of the materials being defined by the general structure Mn+1AXn and the material defined by the general structure Mn+1Xn, wherein the crystal structure of the materials is hexagonal with repeated M-X-M (quasi 2D) atomic layers. The atomic layers are stacked along the {right arrow over (c)}-axis that is oriented substantially parallel to the surface normal of the heat sink layer.