High-Density Recording Using an Electron Beam Recorder

A high-density optical disk fabricated using electron beam mastering exhibited excellent performance. Read-only disks with the recording capacity of 25 to 30 GB were fabricated by electron beam mastering and their jitter values were evaluated by a blue laser read out system. As a result, very low jitter values of 5.4, 6.2 and 7.7% were obtained for the disks whose capacity was 25, 27.5 and 30 GB, respectively. Characteristics of the disks such as track pitch variation, track roundness and recording stability are also shown. The electron beam recorder used in the experiments is described. In particular, details of the electron beam column, properties of the beam, how to adjust and evaluate the beam and a beam blanker are presented. Finally, several problems are addressed.