Optical recording medium with recording marks having different states, and method of recording using the optical recording medium

Abstract

An optical recording medium having a higher improved read accuracy is disclosed. In the case of irradiating a laser beam to an optical recording medium including an optical reflective layer and a recording layer so as to record information therein, in the recording layer, a virtual recording cell having an arbitrary unit length and a unit width perpendicular to the unit length is continuously defined. In the case where the laser beam is irradiated to the virtual recording cell over the entire allowable irradiation time T securable to one virtual recording cell, a reference power of the laser beam is preset so that an optical reflectance of the virtual recording cell can be reduced more than 50% with respect to the initial reflectance. Further, the laser beam having the preset reference power is irradiated to the virtual recording cell in a state that an irradiation time is modulated into five stages or more, and thereby, a recording mark giving five stages or more different optical reflectance to the virtual recording cell can be formed.