High Power Laser Light Source for Near Field Optics and its Application to High Density Optical Data Storage

A novel high power laser light source with an output power exceeding 1mW (10 sup 4 times the power from previous sources) and small (300 nm to less than 50 nm diameter) output beam size for high-resolution near-field optics applications is demonstrated. The near-field laser (NFL) tremendously expands the range of applications possible with near-field optics in biology, surface chemistry, material science, photolithography, and data storage and increases the signal to noise ratios and data rates obtained in existing applications. To demonstrate high density, high data rate optical storage with a NFL, 250 nm diameter marks corresponding to 7.5 Gb/in sup 2 storage density (3 times DVD-ROM) have been recorded and readback in reflection on a phase-change disk at 24 Mb/sec. NFLs enable potential data storage densities of 200 to over 500 Gb/in sup 2 (up to 100 times today's magnetic storage density).