Koichiro Nishikawa

Physical Characteristics and Format of a Two-Inch-Diameter Magneto-Optical Disk System with 3 GB Capacity

Recording at a high density four times that of a current digital versatile disk random access memory (DVD-RAM) has been achieved by applying the domain wall displacement detection (DWDD) technology using a conventional optical head with the same wavelength of 660 nm and numerical aperture (NA) of 0.60 as those the DVD head. It has been confirmed by using an alternating sampled servo, laser annealing of the inter track area and partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) that a recording density of 15 Gbit/inch2 with a track pitch of 540 nm and bit length of 80 nm has sufficient system margins. A newly developed 1-bit-distributed address format has achieved a redundancy of 23%. Furthermore, the edge shift compensation technique has reduced the recording magnetic field. These indicate that a capacity of 3 GB on a two-inch-diameter disk is now available for mobile use. If applied to a digital video camera, one hour or more of moving-picture-experts-group-2 (MPEG2) video contents can be recorded at a bit rate of 6 Mbps.

A Study of Near Field Recording Optics for Cover-Layer Incident Dual-Layer Disc with an NA=1.45 Hemispherical Solid Immersion Lens

Practical optics for a cover-layer incident dual-layer disc with an NA=1.45 hemispherical solid immersion lens are designed, using a spherical aberration compensating liquid crystal cell. A hybrid servo system, gap servo for NA >1 and focus servo for NA < 1, is proposed.

Domain wall displacement detection magnetooptical drive for mobile use, with 15 Gbit/inch2 recording density and 24 Mbps data transfer rate

We have developed a domain wall displacement detection (DWDD) magnetooptical drive for the 2-inch-diameter disc with 3 GB capacity. The newly developed magnetic head and the drive circuit realize the high efficiency of 1.84 Oe/mA and the high speed switching of 13.5 ns. An optical pickup (OPU) with wavelength of 660 nm and numerical aperture (NA) of 0.6 is sufficiently compact to approach the innermost disc radius of 11 mm, and the overall weight is 3.2 g. The volume and power consumption of the entire drive system are 35.5 cc and 0.78 W respectively, and they are adequate for use in mobile storage devices. Furthermore, we have confirmed a complete read/write performance with 15 Gbit/inch2 recording density and 24 Mbps data transfer rate.