Silver-gold compound metal island films for durable write-once optical disk memories

Abstract

Silver-gold compound metal island (CMI) films fabricated by using a two-step evaporation method have been investigated for write-once (WO) optical disk memories. It has been experimentally confirmed that the CMI films are more durable than conventional silver island films reported as potential compact disc-compatible WO memories in previous work. In addition, the reflectance of the CMI film is as high as that of the silver island film at 800 nm and can be significantly reduced by heating the films at 150–200°C. This suggests that the silver-gold CMI films may be useful as write-once optical data storage media.