A solid immersion lens (SIL) has the advantage of easily decreasing the spot size for high data density in optical recording. To accurately obtain the optical tunneling effect for a high-N.A. SIL, we calculated the optical tunneling beam characteristics, using electromagnetic theory. Tunneling beam spot-size dependence on polarization direction and energy-transfer efficiency are also clearly shown.

Optical disk systems are expected to meet the demands of large memory capacity because their recording density is about ten times higher than that of magnetic disks or tapes. A mass storage library system already implemented for a jukebox system. It used write-once optical disks and had a long access time. Recent advances in optical disk technology have increased the demand for erasable disks. Faster access times for mass storage systems are needed.

The optical system in recordable optical discs must realize both, a smaller spot size for high data capacity, and an increased optical power for a high data transfer rate. We have devised a simple optical element that converts the Gaussian intensity distribution into a flat intensity distribution by refraction without optical power loss or aberrations.

We have optimized the beam splitter in a magneto-optic system for improving a signal amplitude and carrier-to-noise ratio. We calculated the optimum conditions using the Jones matrix and taking the optics and media characteristics into account. We obtained a good readout signal.

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