Subtle effects of the substrate in optical disk data storage systems

Much attention has been focused on the effects of the disk substrate in optical data storage. In particular, substrate birefringence has been studied extensively because it causes significant problems in magneto-optic systems. We investigate certain subtle effects of the substrate, such as feedback into the laser diode, in compact disk and phase-change systems. Our analysis of the compact disk system led us to discover a new technique for the rapid measurement of the substrate birefringence. We also address the question of how focusing the laser beam through the substrate will affect the depth of focus.     

Intensity, polarization, and phase information in optical disk systems

Digital information in optical data storage systems can be encoded in the intensity, in the polarization state, or in the phase of a carrier laser beam. Intensity modulation is achieved at the surface of the storage medium either through destructive interference from surface-relief features (e.g., CD or DVD pits) or through reflectivity variations (e.g., alteration of optical constants of phase-change media). Magneto-optical materials make use of the polar magneto-optical Kerr effect to produce polarization modulations of the focused beam reflected from the storage medium. Both surface-relief structures and material-property variations can create, at the exit pupil of the objective lens of the optical pickup, a phase modulation (this, in addition to any intensity or polarization modulation or both). Current optical data storage systems do not make use of this phase information, whose recovery could potentially increase the strength of the readout signal. We show how all three mechanisms can be exploited in a scanning optical microscope to reconstruct the recorded (or embedded) data patterns on various types of optical disk.     

Ring-lens focusing and push-pull tracking scheme for optical disk systems

An experimental comparison of the ring-lens and the astigmatic techniques of generating a focus-error signal (FES) in optical disk systems reveals that the ring lens generates a FES curve over two times steeper than that produced by the astigmat. Partly because of this large slope and partly because of its diffraction-limited behavior, the ring-lens scheme exhibits superior performance characteristics. In particular, the undesirable signal known as feedthrough (induced on the FES by track crossings during the seek operation) is substantially lower than that observed with the astigmatic method. The ring lens is easy to align and has reasonable tolerance for positioning errors.     

Sputtering through offset mask for disk acceleration standards

Magnetic data storage hard-disk media and substrate manufacturers are generally required to perform axial acceleration testing. A method has been devised to produce standard patterns on disks to audit and control such testing. The key concept is to sputter metal through a mask-hole which is adequately offset from the media to produce a smooth (triply differentiable) pattern with a bell-shaped peak and with frequency content nearly bounded by the acceleration filter cutoff frequency for mechanical testing. Computer modeling of and sputtering indicates that this shape may be obtained when the mask aperture diameter is about twice the sputter width of the sputtered profile and with offset altitude slightly larger than the desired sputter value     

Tilt correction in an optical disk system

A servo system for the correction of disk tilt in optical disk data storage is proposed, and its basic concepts are demonstrated by the use of a static system in which the disk does not spin. Because disk tilt produces primarily coma in the beam focused onto the disk, the system uses a variable coma generator to produce an equal and opposite amount of coma as that caused by the tilted disk. The magnitude and direction of disk tilt are detected by the use of the light reflected from the front facet of the disk substrate.     

Analysis of error-correction constraints in an optical disk

The compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) is a mature storage medium with complex error control. It comprises four levels of Reed Solomon codes allied to a sequence of sophisticated interleaving strategies and 8:14 modulation coding. New storage media are being developed and introduced that place still further demands on signal processing for error correction. It is therefore appropriate to explore thoroughly the limit of existing strategies to assess future requirements. We describe a simulation of all stages of the CD-ROM coding, modulation, and decoding. The results of decoding the burst error of a prescribed number of modulation bits are discussed in detail. Measures of residual uncorrected error within a sector are displayed by C1, C2, P, and Q error counts and by the status of the final cyclic redundancy check (CRC). Where each data sector is encoded separately, it is shown that error-correction performance against burst errors depends critically on the position of the burst within a sector. The C1 error measures the burst length, whereas C2 errors reflect the burst position. The performance of Reed Solomon product codes is shown by the P and Q statistics. It is shown that synchronization loss is critical near the limits of error correction. An example is given of miscorrection that is identified by the CRC check.     

Repetitive controller design for minimum track misregistration in hard disk drives

Repetitive control is a widely used technique for the compensation of repeatable error in systems that contain rotating mechanisms or repeat a trajectory. Generally, it includes delay chains and a low-pass filter in the positive feedback loop, which generate a periodic signal. The controller has typically been implemented in a plug-in fashion and designed heuristically with the simplest form of the filter. However, this design approach is somewhat ambiguous in the selection of controller parameters because of its influence over nonharmonic frequencies. Also, it leaves the possibility for further improvement. This paper presents an improved design method for the repetitive controller that provides minimum track misregistration (TMR) in a hard disk drive (HDD). For TMR prediction, the method identifies disturbances acting on an HDD and estimates servo performance, using the identification result. We have confirmed the identification and estimation procedure through experiments. In our method, first the basic tracking controller is designed and later the repetitive controller is designed in conjunction with a Q filter. A cost function based on Parseval's theorem, reflecting the servo performance as TMR, is defined. Then the servo performance is estimated from the identified disturbance, and the plant and designed controller's frequency response are modified as necessary by changing the parameters of the controller, whose optimization is carried out with a commercial nonlinear optimization tool. The design strategy facilitates the controller design by providing an accurate estimation for the attainable servo performance and design criteria under the optimization framework.     

Microprocessor applications in disk storage systems

The implementation of a disk drive using a micro-processor has led to capabilities not previously found in such devices. This paper will give a brief overview of the architecture of the disk drive and the traditional control functions that have been assimilated by the microprocessor. It will then discuss these new capabilities which include autonomous fault diagnosis, independent servo and I/O exercising, internal error logging, automatic servo error recovery, adaptive servo features, and architectural flexibility.     

Microholographic multilayer optical disk data storage

Micrometer-sized reflection holograms can be written into a rapidly rotating homogeneous photopolymer disk at the focus of a high-numerical-aperture beam and its retroreflection to implement high-capacity multilayer digital data storage. This retroreflection is generated by an optical system with positive unity magnification to ensure passive alignment of the counterpropagating beam. Analysis reveals that the storage capacity and transfer rate of this bit-based holographic storage system compare favorably with traditional page-based systems but at a fraction of the system complexity and cost. The analysis is experimentally validated at 532 nm by writing and reading 12 layers of microholograms in a 125-microm photopolymer disk continuously rotating at 3600 rpm. The experimental results predict a capacity limit of 140 Gbytes in a millimeter-thick disk or over 1 Tbyte with the wavelength and numerical aperture of Blu-Ray.     

Vector diffraction analysis of optical disk readout

The optical disk readout signals from ROM disks are presented by use of a rigorous three-dimensional vector diffraction method. The optical disk is modeled as a crossed metal grating without restriction on the form of the information marks, and the permittivity of the metal is taken into account. The diffracted field from the disk is obtained by means of decomposing the focused incident beam into a spectrum of plane waves and then calculating the diffracted plane waves for each respective incident component. The readout signal is obtained by integration of the energy-flux density of the diffracted field according to the detection scheme of the optical disk system. A typical digital versatile disk (DVD) system is applied with this theory, and the result is far from that of scalar diffraction theory.     

Sources of noise in erasable optical disk data storage

Noise sources in the readback signal for phase-change and magneto-optical disks at red, green, and blue wavelengths are examined, and a simple model is presented to explain the observed noise spectra. For phase-change disks the media noise, which corresponds to ~0.4% fluctuation in the disk's amplitude reflection coefficient, is the limiting performance factor for the conventional detection scheme. In magneto-optical media the depolarization noise, whose fluctuations are ~0.05% of the disk's reflection coefficient, is the major contributor to the media noise in the differential detection scheme. In phase-change optical disks the main sources of noise are the roughness of the groove profiles and the graininess of the polycrystalline recording layer. In nongrooved regions of the disk the media noise measured with green light is found to be nearly the same as that obtained with the red light. In magneto-optical disks the scattering of light from the rough groove profiles, as well as media inhomogeneities, gives rise to depolarization. Measurements on nongrooved regions of a magneto-optical disk indicate that the media noise obtained with the green light is somewhat higher than that obtained with the red light.     

Investigation of certain diffraction effects in an optical disk

We report certain diffraction effects that are pertinent to the operation of double-layer optical recording media. For simulating cross-talk effects for double layers, the diffraction of light from the out-of-focus layer and the resulting distribution on the in-focus layer are studied by use of computer simulations. The findings are then verified qualitatively by direct measurements. We also describe a technique for analyzing (by computer simulation) the focus-error signal (FES), taking into account the cross talk between two layers, in systems that use the astigmatic method in conjunction with the double-layer disk. The results of our computer simulations of the FES give us a 10% cross-talk contribution to the original signal. The results of the FES evaluation are compared with those measured in an actual disk drive; good agreement between computation and measurement is obtained.     

A scintillating optical fiber track imaging detector

In this paper we describe a prototype of the scintillating optical fiber isotope experiment (SOFIE) and give results of a Bevalac calibration using iron nuclei to study the measurement precision in range and trajectory which can be obtained. We have measured the range of iron nuclei with approximate energy 500 MeV/amu entering the SOFIE instrument to a precision of 200–300 μm, and their transverse position coordinate to better than 35 μm. These results indicate that scintillating optical fibers are very useful as a range detector and as a high precision hodoscope for heavy nuclei.     

Novel method for minimizing track seeking residual vibrations ofhard disk drives

Track access time is an important parameter for high-performance hard disk drives (HDDs). Presently, the resonances of the head actuator caused by the pivot-bearing stiffness are an even more urgent problem, since these resonances have become the main design factor that limits further reduction of track access time and improvement of the servo control bandwidth in HDDs. Our objective in this paper is to investigate, from a mechanics and dynamics viewpoint, the influence of the driving force waveforms on residual vibrations and to identify the characteristics of the waveform, which will lead to zero or very low residual vibrations. Using a simplified model of a head actuator assembly and finite-element simulation, we show that the residual vibration of the head actuator assembly depends strongly on the waveform and the time duration of the driving impulse force. If suitable waveform and time duration of the seeking impulse force are appropriately chosen, very low track seeking residual vibrations and quick track access can be achieved     

Influence of substrate thickness on optical disk readout

I consider the influence of different substrate thicknesses on the signal obtained from an optical disk. Two solutions are presented for the reading of different disk types. In one situation a substrate thickness change for disks with equal density is made inoffensive by introduction of a combined amplitude-phase mask in the pupil of the readout objective. In a second situation, where the different thickness is accompanied by a change in optical density, a specific selection in the far field of the detected radiation has proven to be adequate.     

Texture instability in Ni electrodeposits applied in optical disk technology

An x-ray diffraction technique was used to assess the thermal transformation of the crystallographic texture in 300 m thick Ni electrodeposits applied in optical disks technology. The initially strong 100 fiber texture was transformed during annealing to 211 fiber and the temperature range for rapid changes was between 300 and 350°C. A numerical analysis of texture data indicates that the grain boundaries with a low and high misorientation angle (<30° and >45°) had mobility advantage and their migration contributed to the growth of the 211 texture.