Optical Information Recording Apparatus Including Error Checking Circuit

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a recording apparatus which records information in a recording medium on a disk by the use of a light beam. More particularly, it relates to an information recording apparatus in which information can be checked simultaneously with the recording thereof to ascertain that it is correctly recorded.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Heretofore, in apparatuses for recording digital information at a high density, for example, in a magnetic disk system, error checking for inspecting defects in a recording medium before recording has been performed, the read-while-write operation of reading out the information immediately after recording and checking the recorded state has been performed during the recording, and further, an error correction code (ECC) has been added to the signal to be recorded, thereby to sharply enhance the bit error rates of the recorded information.

Also, in an optical disk memory device for optically recording digital information as a sequence of binary "ones" and "zeros" in the form of holes and the absence of holes in the recording medium, it has been necessary to perform the checking operation in order to enhance the bit error rates.

An object of this invention is to provide an optical information recording apparatus capable of performing a read-while-write operation in which a reflected beam from a recording medium is detected during recording and the recorded data is checked on the basis of the reflected beam while recording information.

In order to accomplish such object, this invention is characterized by the fact that reflected light caused by the reflection of a light beam from an optical disk is detected by a light detector and that the recorded state of information on the optical disk is checked on the basis of a variation in the quantity of the reflected light.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the construction of an embodiment of this invention;

FIGS. 2(a)-2(h) are operating waveform diagrams for explaining this invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the construction of essential portions in an embodiment of this invention;

FIGS. 4(a)-4(g) are waveform diagrams for explaining the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the construction of essential portions in another embodiment of this invention; and

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the recorded state of information.

Hereunder, this invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of this invention, in which parallel data delivered from an information source 1 is serialized by a signal modulator 2 into serial data, which is applied to a driver 3 for a diode laser 4 forming an information light source. A laser beam from the diode laser 4, which is directly subjected to pulse modulation by the driver 3, passes through a lens 5, and a half mirror or beam splitter 6 is reflected by a mirror 7 through a focusing lens 8 and is focused to a spot size of about 1-2 .mu.m on a recording medium 10 of an optical disk 9. The optical disk 9 is so constructed that a metal (Bi, Al or the like) or chalcogen glass material (As, Ge, Te, Se or the like) to be used as the recording medium 10 is evaporated in the form of a thin film approximately 100-1,000 A thick on a disk plate 14 made of glass, synthetic plastic material, or the like. The recording medium 10 records the data in selective "on" or "off" states (the presence or absence of a hole) in accordance with the focused light spot. During the recording, a beam reflected from the disk 9 passes back through the same optical path as that for the recording, is again reflected by the mirror 7, is split by the half mirror 6 and is directed to a light detector 11.

The relationship at this time between the modulating signal of the diode laser and the reflection signal detected by the light detector 11 is illustrated in FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b). As seen from FIG. 2(a), the modulating signal of the diode laser 4 has a waveform in which pulse components PL and a direct-current component DC are superposed. When the laser beam modulated by such modulating signal is projected onto the disk 9, the reflected beam from the disk 9 is detected by the detector 11 and the reflection signal as shown in FIG. 2(b) is obtained.

The reflection signal has a maximum peak value for T seconds representing the time during which the temperature of the recording medium 10 rises. When a hole begins to be formed in the recording medium, the pulse component of the reflection signal decreases as the amount of reflected light decreases. In addition, even after the pulse component of the modulating signal becomes nonexistent, the direct-current component of the reflection signal decreases at the trailing edge of the pulse component PL because the medium 10 has the hole and almost no light is reflected. Then the quick recovery of this reflection signal to the normal direct-current component level results from the fact that the medium is moving so that the hole does not remain aligned with the beam.

According to experiments by the inventors, it has been verified that, as illustrated in FIG. 2(b), the reflection signal has a maximum peak value for a period of T seconds during which a temperature rise of the recording medium 10 is produced by the beam, whereupon the reflected beam intensity decreases to about 1/3 of the maximum peak value when the hole begins to be formed after the intial period of T seconds. Accordingly, if the input beam power is constant, the maximum peak duration time T ought to be constant. However, in the presence of defects (dust, scratches, pinholes, etc.) in the recording medium itself, there occurs the possibility that the duration time T lengthens (a case where no hole is produced in the medium or the possibility that the maximum peak value of the reflected beam does not appear at all (a case where a hole has been already provided in the medium). When a hole already exists in the medium prior to recording, the output of detector 11 during the minimum peak duration period appears as the direct-current component of the laser modulating signal. Among these states, the case where no hole is produced in the medium during the recording period and the case where a hole already exists in the medium prior to recording become information errors.

Accordingly, whether the recorded state is good or bad can be determined by detecting the maximum peak duration T of the reflection signal and the minimum peak duration thereof. The manner in which this may be accomplished will be described with reference to FIG. 3 and FIGS. 4(a)-4(g).

FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b) are diagrams corresponding to FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b), respectively. FIG. 4(a) shows an example of the light modulating signal, while FIG. 4(b) shows the reflection signal in FIG. 2(b) in a model-like fashion.

In FIG. 1 the reflected beam received by the light detector 11 is amplified by an amplifier 12, and the amplified signal is applied to a check circuit 13. The arrangement of this check circuit is shown in FIG. 3.

Referring to FIG. 3, the reflection signal, shown in FIG. 4(b), is introduced into a comparator 131, pulses of the maximum peak duration time T are detected, as shown in FIG. 4(c), and the detection of the minimum peak duration is performed in a comparator 132, as shown in FIG. 4(d). In FIG. 4(b), the mark * and the mark ** indicate abnormal cases, the former corresponding to the case where no hole is provided in the recording period and the latter to the case where a hole already exists in the nonrecording period. Using monostable multivibrators 133 and 134, pulses having any desired width are generated after T seconds from the rising parts of the pulses shown in FIG. 4(c), as seen in FIG. 4(e). The logical product (AND) of the pulses of FIG. 4(e) with the signal in FIG. 4(c) is provided by means of an AND gate 135. Then, an error check signal, as seen in FIG. 4(f), is obtained from a bit where no hole was produced during the recording period. Further, the logical sum (OR) of the signal shown in FIG. 4(d) and the signal shown in FIG. 4(f) is provided by means of an OR gate 136. Then, error checking of the recorded data can be accomplished. The error signal, as shown in FIG. 4(g), is applied to the signal modulator 2, it is decided that the data now recorded is erroneous, and the same data begins to be recorded in the next sector on the disk again.

FIG. 6 shows the recorded state of the disk. On the disk recording is effected sector by sector. Assuming by way of example that data has been recorded in a sector A and that an error has been detected in such recorded data, an error marker 101 is recorded in the rearmost part of the sector to indicate that the data of the sector A is erroneous. Subsequently, the address is renewed, and the same data is recorded in a sector B. If the data has been normally recorded in sector B, the error marker is not recorded.

In the above, there has been explained the case where the recorded state of information is checked by detecting the maximum peak duration and the minimum peak duration. However, this invention is not restricted thereto, but the recorded state of information can also be checked by detecting a decrease in the direct-current component.

Experiments by the inventors have revealed that such decrease in the direct-current component in the event of an error exists, for example, for several hundreds nsec. The detection of such a decrease in the direct-current component of the modulating signal is effective for checking for the presence or absence of a hole especially in the case of spot recording. Here, "spot recording" is a recording wherein a pit (hole) in the same shape as that of the spot of the light beam is formed in the recording medium and wherein the information recording is executed depending upon the presence or absence of the pit. Such recording corresponds to a case where the distance by which the light spot moves on the recording medium within the time interval of illumination of the recording medium by the light beam is smaller than the spot diameter. More specifically, letting d denote the spot diameter, D the diameter of the recording track, N the rotational frequency of the disk, and T the illumination time of the beam, the following relationship is fulfilled:

Assuming by way of example that d is 2 .mu.m, N is 4 r.p.s. and D is 200 mm, then .DELTA.T becomes 80 ns.

In such spot recording, as the spot becomes smaller, it becomes more difficult to detect a decrease in the reflection signal in the form of the decrease of the pulse component PL, that is, to detect the maximum peak duration T. Therefore, the decrease of the reflection signal or the existence of a hole can be more reliably checked by the detection of a decrease in the direct-current component DC.

Hereunder, there will be described with reference to the drawings a case where the presence or absence of a hole in the recording medium is checked in such a way that the decreased part of the direct-current component after the illumination with the light beam is detected by comparison with a predetermined threshold value.

FIG. 5 is a circuit diagram showing the construction of an embodiment in the above case, while FIGS. 2(c)-2(h) are waveform diagrams for explaining the operation of this embodiment.

The errors which might be encountered during recording are (1) a case where no hole has been provided, and (2) a case where a hole has been existent in spite of the absence of a recording pulse (a defect in the recording medium, etc.). In FIG. 2(b), the case (1) is indicated by the mark *, and the case (2) by the mark **. The reflected beam received by the light detector 11 is amplified by the amplifier 12, and the resultant signal is fed to the error check circuit 13. The arrangement of this error check circuit 13 is shown in FIG. 5.

Referring to FIG. 5, when the reflection signal, as shown in FIG. 2(b), and a comparing level E.sub.1 indicative of the predetermined threshold value are compared in a comparator 151, a waveform A shown in FIG. 2(c) is obtained. Subsequently, a waveform B having a pulse width t (for example, 150 nsec-500 nsec) is generated by a monostable multivibrator 152 at the timing of the falling part of the beam modulating signal (refer to FIG. 2(d)). In order to detect the error of the type indicated by the mark **, the logical product between the waveform A and a signal obtained by inverting the waveform B by means of an inverter 158 may be obtained by means of an AND gate 153, represented by waveform C in FIG. 2(g). In the detection of the error of the type indicated by the mark *, the logical product between the waveform A and the waveform B is obtained by means of an AND gate 154, represented by the waveform D in FIG. 2(e). Thereafter, this waveform is applied to the pin D of a D-type flip-flop 156. A signal obtained by inverting the beam modulating signal by means of an inverter 159 is delayed by .DELTA.t (for example, about 50 nsec) by means of a delay circuit 155, and is applied to the pin for a clock signal (CK) of the D-type flip-flop 156. Then, at the rising part of the signal of the pin CK, a level at the pin D is fed to the pin for output (Q) of the flip-flop, and hence, a waveform E, as shown in FIG. 2(f), is obtained at the output pin Q.

A waveform F, shown in FIG. 2(h), is obtained in such a way that the waveform E representative of the occurrence of the error of the type indicated by the mark * and the waveform C representative of the occurrence of the error of the type indicated by the mark ** have their logical sum taken by means of an OR gate 157, and the output thereof becomes the check signal indicating the errors which have occurred during the recording period.

When an error check signal has been developed and it is decided therefrom that an error has occurred in data now recorded, the same data is recorded in a different location, as explained with reference to FIG. 6. Thus, data recording free from any error is always provided.

The above embodiments have been explained as employing a diode laser for the recording light source. It has been verified, however, that similar results are obtained where gaseous lasers (for example, He-Ne laser and Ar laser) have been used.

As set forth above, according to this invention, the information recording apparatus capable of error checking as to whether or not a signal has been certainly recorded can be provided for spot recording in which data is recorded depending upon the presence or absence of a hole in the medium.