THE DESIGN OF A COMBINED OPTICAL DISC TESTER AND R-θ SCANNING LASER MICROSCOPE

This paper describes the design of a novel, combined R-θ scanning laser microscope and optical disk tester, which is to be used for the testing and evaluation of optical recording media. The instrument is capable of perfoming a range of standard read/write tests, whilst simultaneously yielding a microscopic image of the recorded bit structure with sub-micron resolution. A range of optical media can be investigated including magneto-optic, phase-change and write-once formats such as dye-polymer media.