Proposal of ultrahigh density optical disk system using a vertical cavity surface emitting laser array

An ultrahigh density optical disk system of Tera bit/inch(2) 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.