Multiple data layer optical disk drive system with fixed aberration

Abstract

A multiple data layer optical disk drive system has fixed aberration correction and uses a disk with maximum interlayer spacing for reduced interlayer crosstalk. In one embodiment the multiple data layer disk has a substrate with a thickness that is reduced by approximately one-half the thickness of the spacer layer that separates the first and last data layers. The disk is designed to operate with a lens that has spherical aberration correction to compensate for the thickness of a conventional single data layer disk. This allows the disk drive to handle multiple data layer disks as well as to be backward compatible and thus handle conventional single data layer disks. The thickness of the substrate material plus one-half the thickness of the spacer layer material (which may have a different index of refraction than the substrate material) is equivalent, for purposes of spherical aberration correction, to the thickness of the substrate material used in the conventional single data layer disk. The focused spot with minimum spherical aberration is thus located at the middle of the spacer layer rather than on the first data layer. The spacer layer thickness is selected so that when the focused spot is located on either the first or last data layer there is some deliberately designed spherical aberration, although an amount that is acceptable. As a result the thickness of the spacer layer can be significantly increased to thereby reduce interlayer crosstalk. In another embodiment that substrate thickness and spacer layer thickness are selected and then the lens is corrected for spherical aberration corresponding to the thickness of substrate material plus one-half the thickness of spacer layer material.