Simple Near-Field Optical Recording Using Bent Cantilever Probes

Abstract

This paper describes our high‐density near‐field optical recording using bent cantilever fiber probes installed in an atomic force microscope. We conducted a near‐field reading of nano‐scale hole patterns with a 100 nm spatial resolution and a 25 µm/s scan speed; this implies a capability of a data reading density of 60 Gb/in2 with a 0.25 kbps data transfer rate. In addition, we investigated re‐writable near‐field recording on photochromic diarylethene films. We successfully recorded erasable memory bits having a minimum width of 600 nm in a writing time as short as 30 ms. We found that using a cantilever probe simplifies the setup and operation of the near‐field optical recording system and may offer multifunctional recording capabilities.

Photochromism of Diarylethene Molecules and Crystals: Memories, Switches, and Actuators

“…Other recording methods using the near-field optics, such as SIL, Super-RENZ, or bent cantilever fiber probes, , also have been tried and applied to ultrahigh density recording with nondestructive readout capability.…”

Multi-Functional Probe Recording: Field-Induced Recording and Near-Field Optical Readout

“…But the contrast change manifests from the dramatic difference between the brightness of dots a and b under the similar aspect of the brightness gradient of the background. The evidence of an absence of serious heterogeneity can be found in our previous papers showing NSOM images using the same detector [14], [15]. The varying optical images with an incident laser wavelength reveals that the optical contrast of the NSOM images is dependent on the wavelength of the incident light, implying a resonance behavior.…”

“…Figure 5 displays three images of typical recording dots on a glass substrate: (a) a topography using an AFM probe, (b) a topography using an NSOM probe, and (c) an optical transmission generated using a bent optical fiber probe. It should be noted that the array of recorded dots appear as bright spots in an optical transmission image with a spatial resolution of about 100 nm [15]. We estimate the optical signal increase at the mark to be 30% of the background signal.…”

Improvement of scanning speed in NSOM-based data storage device

“…Among the efforts to overcome the diffraction limit and achieve ultra high data density has been extensively carried out, especially near-field scanning optical microscopy is (NSOM) proved to offer high spatial resolution up to a few tenth of laser wavelength, being a good candidate for the next-generation optical storage technique. [1][2][3].…”