Near-field Optical Recording Research Articles

Laser Reviews. Ultrahigh Density Optical Recording by the Use of Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope.

Near-field optical recording using magneto-optic, phase-change, and photochromic materials was reviewed. Among them, rewritable recording using photochromic media was described in detail. Marks as small as 100nm in width were recorded on the dithienylethene photochromic media by irradiation with 529-nm light, and erased by irradiation with UV light (300nm < λ < 400nm).

Near-field optical microscopic recording on Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films and chemically modified surfaces

We present here our scanning near-field optical microscopic (SNOM) recording on chemically modified surfaces and Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films. As the photochemical reaction, photocleavage of the chemically modified Si(100) surface and photoisomerization from trans- to cis-form of azobenzene moieties of an amphiphilic azobenzene derivative in the LB films were utilized. Photochemically recorded surfaces were studied with AFM and friction force microscopy (FFM). It was found that FFM can be used to read out the photochemically recorded images with a high lateral resolution.

Near-field optical disk recording for very high data density

The use of subwavelength near-field apertures opens the possibility of optical dish data density increases in excess of 4 orders of magnitude.