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A recording density of 1.5 Pb m−2 using heat-assisted magnetic recording in a bit-patterned media is demonstrated. This represents a dramatic improvement in track width and optical efficiency over continuous media, owing largely to advantageous near-field optical effects.

A Ag–Ge–Sb–Te recording film was developed, and its chemical composition was optimized to minumize overwrite jitter. The cause of the jitter was investigated by measuring the crystallization ratios and by transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the overwrite jitter increased with a shortage of Ge or Ag because the crystallization speed increased when these elements were added, while it increased with an excess of Ge or Ag because the crystallization speed decreased when these elements were added. A model based on the atomic bond distance and the strength of interatomic interactions in the crystal was devised. The model can be used to explain the mechanism by which a slight change in the chemical composition of recording films changes the crystallization speed. It was confirmed that the proposed disk with recording film having a small amount of Ag had the minimum overwrite jitter (under 10%).

The formation and observation, with reflected light, of 60‐nm‐diam phase‐changed domains in a thin GeSbTe film using a scanning near‐field optical microscope with a 785 nm wavelength laser diode is demonstrated. The dependence of the domain size on incident laser power was obtained, and the size changed from 150 to 60 nm in diameter with incident power of 8.4–7.3 mW in the probe. At the threshold power of 7.3 mW, the film temperature rose to around 180 °C to partially phase change the local area of the film from amorphous to crystalline. A detected reflectivity increase due to phase change in the formed domain was 8%–2%. The observing (reading) was performed with an incident laser power of 0.2 mW, which corresponds to 10−2–10−3 times less than in a magneto‐optical recording. The incident laser power shows that the phase change reading using the reflection scanning near‐field optical microscope has the potential to read the recorded bit at a speed over 10 MHz.

We demonstrate 80 nm diameter bit recording for the first time using a phase change recording film and a reflection scanning near-field optical microscope with a 785 nm wavelength laser diode. The sample structure was a 20 nm thick ZnS-SiO 2 protection layer/30 nm thick Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 recording film/150 nm thick ZnS-SiO 2 protection layer/polycarbonate substrate. Writing was performed with pulsed laser light of 8.4 mW for 5 ms and 0.5 ms, and 8.0 mW for 5 ms. Written bits were observed in reflection by illuminating a small light of 0.2 mW. In this form of recording, a formation of phase change domains of about 50 nm in diameter is expected if the surface deformation is suppressed. Our results indicate the possibility to achieve an ultra-high recording density of more than 100 Gb in -2 .

Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) was applied to phase-change (PC) mark writing to investigate the potential of ultrahigh density data storage. GeSbTe, one of the typical PC media, was used as a recording layer. Using a laser diode (LD) with a wavelength of 785 nm as light source, crystalline marks with a minimum size of ∼ 80 nm in diameter were successfully written in the amorphous GeSbTe film with pulse conditions of 5 ms and 0.5 ms and 8.4 mW inside the probe. The detected power in observation of the marks was 10 2 –10 3 times as high as that in magneto-optical (MO) observation.

High-speed recording and read-out were carried out under the condition of numerical aperture (NA) 0.65 and substrate thickness 0.6 mm using a blue-violet laser of 405 nm. Using a GeSbTe phase change material of the crystal nucleus generation dominant type, we obtained a carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) of 50 dB with 0.24 µm mark and a DC erase ratio of 30 dB at a velocity of 18 m/s. It was proven that the realization of the 100 Mbps data transfer rate was possible by optimizing record compensation.

We present for the first time a nanometer-sized phase-change recording using a scanning near-field optical microscope (PC-SNOM recording). The recording experiments were performed with a SNOM using a 785-nm-wavelength semiconductor laser diode, shear force detection for gap control and reflected light detection for observing the domains (reading). The recording media of ZnS·SiO2(20 nm)/GeSbTe(30 nm)/ZnS·SiO2(150 nm)/polycarbonate substrate were used. The writings were done at laser powers of 8.4–7.3 mW in the probe for pulse widths of 5 or 0.5 ms. As a result, we obtained a minimum recorded domain size of 60 nm in diameter. This size shows a potential to achieve an ultrahigh density PC-SNOM recording with about 170 Gb/in2. A possibility of achieving high speed readout for the future data storage is also discussed.