Erasable optical-recording materials

Fulgides and related diarylethenes have been investigated extensively because of the long-term thermal stability of their photocyclized colored forms, which could lead to this application in erasable optical recording materials and photoswitchable optical elements. The entrapment of these photochromic molecules in polymer films is necessary for these practical applications. Picosecond laser photolysis was employed to study the electrocyclic reaction of a furylfulgide (18, Figure 8) in polymer solids and revealed that the colored structure was formed with a time constant of ca. lOps irrespective of the nature of the polymer matrix.49... 

The mechanism of WORM recording and indeed of all currently available optical disc media, whether erasible or write-once, depends upon the heat generated by a focused laser beam impinging on an absorbing medium. The energy, normally near-IR radiation, is transmitted to the absorbing material in a time much shorter than the time it takes for the heat generated to dissipate by thermal conduction. 

A photochromic compound is characterized by its ability to alternate between two different chemical forms having different absorption spectra in response to light of appropriate wavelengths. Photochromic materials are promising as recording media for optical memory, because the media store erasable/ rewritable data in photon mode. Because the data-recording mechanism is based on the photochemical reaction of each molecule, extremely high spatial resolution is expected. 

Optical information storage, which has been a dream since the discovery of the laser, is now becoming a commercial reality. Read-only consumer products (video and digital audio disks) have provided a solid technological base for the development and introduction of the more sophisticated write-once and erasable recording systems. This chapter will review the current status of polymeric materials as substrates, protective layers, and active recording media in laser recording. 

---