Land and Groove Recording for High Track Density on Phase-Change Optical Disks

Abstract

We have proposed a high-track-density optical recording method, which records signals on both the land area and groove area. From a computer simulation based on the scalar diffraction theory, we found that crosstalk between recording tracks depends on the groove depth, and is most reduced at the groove depth of 80 nm∼90 nm for a laser wavelength of 780 nm, a numerical aperture of 0.55 and a track pitch of 0.8 µm. Applying this method to a phase-change optical disk, we experimentally confirmed that crosstalk depends on the groove depth and obtained a crosstalk level of less than -32 dB for a groove depth of 64 nm to 78 nm and 0.9 µm length marks. In order to prove that this recording method can be used for rewritable media, we also measured change of carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) when signals were repeatedly recorded on an adjacent track. The reduction of CNR after 1000 repetitions of writing was less than 2 dB for a linear velocity of 5 m/s.