Near-field optical recording on cyanine dye layer of a commercial compact disk-recordable (CD-R)

A tapping mode AFM and homemade SNOM were used to image and deliver the optical energy to the surface of a cyanine dye (C/sub 35/H/sub 35/ClN/sub 2/O/sub 4/) layer. The near-field optical probes were fabricated by pulling a single mode optical fiber at constant force while locally heating it in the discharge produced by the arc electrodes of a commercial fiber splicer. The probes were metal (Pt/Pd or Al) coated obliquely to form a nanometer-scale aperture at the end. Most of the fiber tips are capable of near-field optical resolutions below 40 nm. The cyanine dye layer was spin coated onto the polycarbonate substrate of a commercial compact disk. The concentration and thickness of the dye layer can be monitored by recording the transmission spectrum before and after coating.