The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 05, 2001
Filed:
Apr. 29, 1997
Gordon R. Knight, Saratoga, CA (US);
John Al-Samarrie, Felton, CA (US);
David Blankenbeckler, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Brian Bonn, Scotts Valley, CA (US);
Alan Burroughs, San Jose, CA (US);
Warren Dalziel, Monte Sereno, CA (US);
Roger Hajjar, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Amit Jain, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Guolin Ma, Milpitas, CA (US);
Brian Tremaine, San Jose, CA (US);
TeraStor Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
Optical storage systems based on air-bearing-suspended optical heads in a near-field configuration. Such a system comprises an optical head for reading and writing data and a head positioning system, an optics module including beam relay optics and signal detectors, and a medium holding and loading module to hold an optical medium. An electronic control system is also provided to control the system operation. The optical head includes a near-field lens with a high index of refraction and in a near-field configuration in which the near-field lens has a numerical aperture greater than unity when the spacing between an exit facet of the optical head and a recording layer in the optical medium is a fraction of one wavelength of optical beam.