Proposal of Ultrahigh Density Optical Disk System Using a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser Array

An ultrahigh density optical disk system of Tera bit/inch2 is described. This system utilizes a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) diode array as a parallel optical beam source which can make the disk system more useful at a high data transfer rate and bit density using evanescent waves from each laser cavity. In order to avoid the diffraction limited restriction to the optical beam the near-field optics is adopted to the parallel beam optical head. 1 bit size on the surface of the disk is 10–20 nm in diameter. A polished glass disk substrate is deposited by either phase change medium or photon mode optical medium. The medium thickness of the disk is approximately 10–20 nm. The optical gap size between the surface of the medium and laser output windows of a VCSEL array head is controlled within 20 nm using contact head technology.