Rewritable Dual-Layer Phase-Change Optical Disk Utilizing a Blue-Violet Laser

Abstract

We have demonstrated for the first time the feasibility of using a rewritable dual-layer phase-change optical disk utilizing a blue-violet laser. For the first medium, we adopted a very thin recording layer with a new phase-change material Ge–Sn–Sb–Te, and a 10-nm-thick silver-alloy reflective layer to obtain a large transmittance and high-quality signals. For the second medium, we optimized the thickness of each layer to obtain both a large optical absorption of the recording layer and a small heat capacity. Carrier-to-noise ratios of more than 50 dB, erasability of more than 30 dB and recording powers of 8 mW for the first medium and 11 mW for the second medium were obtained under typical recording conditions corresponding to a capacity of 27 GB per one side of a 120 mm disk and a user data transfer rate of 33 Mbps.