Study of the optical response of phase-change recording layer with zinc oxide nanostructured thin film

Recently, use of nanostructured materials as a near-field optical active layer has attracted a lot of interest. The non-linear optical properties and strong enhancements of metallic oxide nanostructured thin films are key functions in applications of promising nanophotonics. For the importance of ultra-high density optical data storage, we continue investigating the ultra-high density recording property of near-field optical disk consisting of zinc oxide (ZnO_x) nanostructured thin film. A carrier-to-noise ratio above 38 dB at a recording mark size of 100 nm can be obtained in the ZnO _x near-field optical disk by a DVD driver tester directly. In this article, we use an optical pump-probe system (static media tester) to measure the optical response of a phase-change recording layer (Ge₂Sb ₂Te₅) and demonstrate the high contrast of optical recording with a ZnO_x nanostructured thin film in short pulse durations. Also, we investigate the dependence of writing power and the optical response in conventional re-writable recording layers and the phase-change material with ZnO_x nanostructured thin film. © 2008 The Authors.