Ultrahigh density optical recording technology

Summary form only given. Magneto-optical recording technology was first introduced to the marketplace in 1989, but did not increase in areal storage density until 1994 when the areal density was increased by a factor of two. Now, even higher density products are appearing, and it appears that the areal density of optical recording products will continue to increase at a rapid pace. Density increases to at least 32/spl times/ the density of the original products now appear likely and even higher densities are possible. Among the technologies expected to make these increases in storage density possible are shorter wavelength light sources, magnetic super resolution, higher numerical aperture objectives, land and groove recording with crosstalk cancellation, sector servo, pulse width modulation codes, improved signal processing, and multilayer recording.