Piano-Convex Solid Immersion Mirror with a Small Aperture for Near-field Optical Data Storage

We proposed and developed a new solid immersion mirror (SIM) for near-field optical data storage. The SIM has some advantages, especially in manufacturing, because its shape is similar to a general plano-convex lens. Making an aperture of about 130 nm in diameter just on the focus area of the SIM, a bit-data recording onto a photochromic thin film was carried out. Minimum diameter of the written marks was estimated to be 180nm. We also demonstrated readout experiments where a recorded medium was rotating and a gap between the SIM and the disk was controlled with capacitance sensing. This is the first result of reading with a rotating disk using an SIM containing a small aperture.This paper was originally presented at the 10th Optical Near Field Workshop, which was held on June 27-28, 2001 at Osaka University, organized by the Optical Near Field Group, the Optical Society of Japan, an affiliate of the Japan Society of Applied Physics.