Near-Field Optical Recording Using Solid Immersion Lens for High-Density Flexible Optical Disks

We propose a near-field optical recording flexible optical disk (NFR-FOD) for high-density recording at a high data transfer rate. We built a prototype high-density NFR-FOD that had a track pitch of 0.16 µm and we stacked some recording layers on a thin substrate that was 0.1 mm thick. We rotated the NFR-FOD closing the mechanical stabilizer on a drive system with less than 10 µm p–p axial run-out and achieved precise gap servo operation at a high rotational speed. We demonstrated near-field optical recording with a solid immersion lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 1.84 on the NFR-FOD. The NFR-FOD has a fourfold higher recording density than the current Blu-ray disc, corresponding to a capacity of 100 Gbytes per layer, and a high data transfer rate of 250 Mbps, while rotating at half the speed.