Abstract

Textured surfaces have been studied for application to optical storage media (1) and represent an alternative mechanism to the usual ablative hole-opening process. The important advantage of the textured media is that the slope, S=dC/dE, in the contrast, C, vs writing power, E, curve can be easily altered by adopting various etching conditions in the texturing process. The contrast ratio is defined as $\text{C}=\frac{\left|\text{Ra}-\text{Rb}\right|}{\text{Ra}+\text{Rb}}$, where Ra and Rb are the reflectivity before and after pit formation respectively. The theoretical analysis (2) and a preliminary experimental result indicate that the writing threshold energy for textured media is determined by the energy required to melt a spot in the medium. This represents a significant sensitivity improvement and a great deal of simplification in the material selection. In this paper, we are concerned mainly the former characteristics of the texture media.

© 1983 Optical Society of America