Phase-shifting apodizer for next-generation digital versatile disk

The next generation digital versatile disk (DVD) using blue lasers will have a capacity of 13 to 15 Gbytes. Compared with current DVD, the wavelength will be shorter and the numerical aperture (NA) will be higher. But with the increase of NA and decrease of wave length, the depth of focus (DOF) decrease rapidly, which makes it hard for the servo-system to track. We propose an optimized three-portion phase-shifting apodizer to increase the depth of focus and at the same time minimize the spot size, which makes the DOF of next generation DVD comparable to current DVD. The simulation result shows that an optical system with this apodizer also has a good defocus characteristic.