INFORMATION RECORDING MEDIUM

Abstract: An information recording medium includes a first disc (11) and a second disc (12) coaxially positioned adjacent the first disc (11). A first spacing member (15, 16) is positioned between the first and second discs (11, 12) for fixedly connecting the discs together to form an air space (17) between the facing surfaces of the first and second discs. A recording layer (14, 140) is formed on the facing surface of at least one of the discs (11, 12) in the air space (17) between them. The recording layer (14, 140) includes a pre-formatted data recording area (14a, 140a) having recorded pre-formatted data thereon. A second spacing member (20) is aligned with the surface of the pre-formatted data recording area (14a, 140a) and is bonded to the pre-formatted data recording area (14a, 140a) of the recording layer (14, 140) and to the facing surface of the other disc.

Description: The present invention relates to an information recording medium, such as an optical disc or video disc, on which high-density recording can be performed. One conventional information recording medium is disclosed in U. S. Patent No. 4074282. This recording medium consists of two discs, one of which is transparent, arranged in coaxial relation. Optical information recording layer, which consists of an energy-absorbing layer or a light reflective layer, is formed directly on one surface of one disc. The discs face each other so that the recording layer is positioned therebetween. Each of the discs is bonded with adhesive agent to a concentric inner spacer and a concentric outer spacer disposed therebetween to provide an air space between the discs. In one embodiment of the invention, each of the discs is transparent and each of the discs has a recording layer on the surface which is between the two discs. The discs must be formed with a relatively small thickness, since the recording/reading beam must pass through the discs without distortion. That is, the use of a disc having small thickness prevents beam energy loss and refraction of light and the beam passes through the disc. However, due to the disc's thickness and transparency requirements, the material used lacks stiffness. Thus, when the air or gas within the space between the discs expands or contracts as the surrounding heat or atmospheric pressure changes, the information recording medium bends or undulates in accordance with this expansion or contraction. Any resulting bending or undulation then causes defocusing of the recording/reading beam, which produces inaccuracies in processing the information stored on the recording layers. In extreme cases, the information recording medium and the optical head will eventually contact each other thereby preventing any processing of the stored information. To overcome this problem, in one embodiment of the invention disclosed in US-4074282, one or more radial spcers are provided between the discs in addition to the inner and outer spacers. In fact, two coaxial rings with four radial spokes are employed in one embodiment of the invention. Although the provision of one or more radial spacers increases the strength of the recording medium, the recording surface is reduced by the area of the radial spacer(s). It is an object of the present invention to provide an information recording medium which overcomes this difficulty. According to the present invention, an information recording medium comprises a pair of disc-shaped members arranged in coaxial relation with an annular inner spacer, an annular outer spacer and a radial spacer located between the members and connecting the members together with an air space between the facing surfaces of the members; and a recording layer on said facing surface of one of the members; characterised in that said recording layer includes concentric tracks divided in sectors with a recordable sector area and a pre-formatted sector address area, the pre-formatted sector address area extending radially in line and said radial spacer is bonded to the surface of the pre-formatted sector address area of the recording layer and the facing surface of the other member. In order that the invention may be more readily understood, it will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:- Figure 1 is a fragmentary perspective view of the information recording medium of the present invention in disassembled form; Figure 2 is a vertical sectional view of the information recording medium shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 is a fragmentary perspective view of the information recording medium shown in Figure 2; Figure 4 is a perspective view sectionally showing the pre-formatted data recording portion of the information recording medium of the present invention; and Figure 5 is a perspective view sectionally showing the pre-formatted data recording portion of another type of information recording medium according to the present invention. Figures 2 and 3 show an optical disc which is an information recording medium of the present invention. This optical disc 10 is constructed using a first disc 11 and a second disc composed of transparent material of synthetic resin, for example, polycarbonate resin. First and second discs 11 and 12 are formed with, for example, external diameters of approximately 130 mm (5.25 inches) and spindle holes 13 of diameter approximately 15 mm drilled at their centres of rotation. Discs 11 and 12 are, respectively, formed with thicknesses of 1 - 2 mm. Annular information recording layers 14 are formed by vapour-depositing a metal, such as Te (tellurium), on the surfaces of first disc 11 and second disc 12 which face each other. As shown in Figure 4, a plurality of grooves G are spirally or concentrically formed on recording layers 14 along the circumference of discs 11 and 12. A plurality of lands L are formed between grooves G as tracks on which address data and information data are recorded by using a laser beam. On lands L in address recording area 14a, address data comprising a plurality of pits P is, respectively, recorded as pre-formatted data by using a laser beam. This address data is made up, for example, of the track number and sector number on information recording layer 14 and is pre-formatted by the CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) method. In the case of this CAV method, because the formatting is carried out at a constant angular velocity, the number of sectors per track are the same at the inner perimeter and the outer perimeter of a recording layer 14. Consequently, in an optical disc formatted by the CAV method, as a general rule, the sectors on each track are positioned at the same angles. For this reason, on an optical disc, address recording areas 14a with sectors in which the address data is recorded are aligned and extend from the inner perimeter to the outer perimeter. The data in recording layers 14 is recorded, for example, by opening pits using a laser beam from a semiconductor laser along lands L. When playing back, the data recorded on optical discs 10 is reproduced by detecting the reflected light or the transmitted light of a laser beam from a semiconductor laser with which recording layer 14 is irradiated. An annular inner space 15 and an annular outer spacer 16, of thickness about 0.5 - 1 mm, are positioned concentrically between, and bonded to, first disc 11 and second disc 12 as the first and second spacers. Furthermore, address recording areas 14a are bonded together with connecting spacers 20 between them as third spacers having the same thickness as inner spacer 15 and outer spacer 16. By this means, air-sandwich construction optical disc 10 is formed having several sector-shaped internal air spaces 17 equivalent in thickness to that of the spacers 20 between the surfaces of recording layers 14. In this case, the two ends of connecting spacers 20 are connected to inner spacer 15 and outer spacer 16, and all the spacers are incorporated by bonding them together. By this means, the bonding area with first and second discs 11 and 12 become larger and the bonding strength increases. At the same time, the disc is designed so that the space between first and second discs 11 and 12 is maintained constant, and it is not deformed by external pressure or bending. Air-sandwich construction optical disc 10 has a construction in which two optical discs, recorded on one side each, on which address data which is formatted by the CAV method has been recorded by pre-formatting before the completion of optical disc 10, are bonded together, with inner spacer 15, outer spacer 16 and connecting spacers 20 between them. Consequently, reduction of recording area and damage to the data in address recording areas 14a is prevented due to bonding together of recording layers 14 with connecting spacers between them. Next, the assembling method of the optical disc in the above construction is described. In Figure 1, second disc 12 is placed with information recording layer 14 on one side. Then, one side 15a of inner spacer 15 is bonded around spindle hole 13, and one side 16a of outer spacer 16 is bonded around the outer perimeter of second disc 12. In addition, one side 20a of each of connecting spacers 20 and address recording area 14a of information recording layer 14 are aligned and bonded together. At this time, one end portion 20c and the other end portion 20d of each spacer 20 are joined to inner spacer 15 and outer spacer 16, respectively. Further, it prefers to bond the joint portions with bonding agent. Address data are recorded previously on address recording area 14a of recording layer 14 by using laser beam, as shown in Figure 4. Then, information recording layer 14 of first disc 11 is positioned facing disc 12. Inner spacer 15 is aligned around spindle hole 13 and outer spacer 16 is aligned with the outer perimeter. Moreover, address recording area 14a are aligned with connecting spacers 20. Then, disc 11 is bonded to the exposed surfaces 15b, 16b and 20b of the respective spacers 15, 16 and 20. As a result, first disc 11 and second disc 12 are bonded together with inner spacer 15, outer spacer 16 and connecting spacers 20 in between, and air-sandwich construction optical disc 10 is obtained having sector-shaped interval air spaces 17 equivalent in thickness to those of inner spacer 15, outer spacer 16 and connecting spacers 20. In the above way, the first and second discs are bonded together with the connecting spacers which connect the inner spacer and the outer spacer at the address recording areas. That is, the design is such that the first and second discs are bonded together, using spacers which are an inner spacer and an outer spacer connected by radially positioned connecting spacers. By this means, the bonding strength for the air-sandwich construction optical disc can be improved by enlarging the bonding areas, and peeling of the discs can be prevented. Moreover, the disc is resistant to deformation, such as bending, and can prevent damage to the recording layers caused by mutual contact between recording surfaces due to external pressure. Furthermore, since the surface of the address recording areas and the surface of the connecting spacers are tightly bonded to each other with the bonding agent, the formation of pits is prevented by the bonding agent. Thus, the address data can be and close up protected, that is, damage to the address data and loss of data can be prevented. Although, in the above embodiment, the inner spacer, the outer spacer and the connecting spacers are all formed separately, bonding may also be carried out using spacers which are formed as an integral single spacer. Moreover, the bonding together of first and second discs 110 and 120, which have been formatted as address recording areas 140a, as shown in Figure 5, may be carried out. That is, information recording layers 140 are coated on the discs 110 and 120 after the formation of a plurality of pits on the surface of the discs 110 and 120 to obtain pre-formatted data as address data. Further, although address data are recorded on lands L in address recording areas 14a, as shown in Figure 4, address data also may be recorded on grooves G. Furthermore, although polycarbonate resin is preferably used for the discs, such synthetic resins as, for instance, polymethylmethacrylate or epoxy, may also be used. Also, needless to say, the present invention can be applied as an optical disc for recording on one side only by providing an information recording layer on either the first disc or the second disc only and bonding it using the address recording areas of this information recording layer to the other disc. As described above, it is possible to provide an information recording medium with improved bonding strength and resistance to deformation and, thus, durability can be improved.

Claims: An information recording medium comprising a pair of disc-shaped members (11, 12) arranged in coaxial relation with an annular inner spacer (15), an annular outer spacer (16) and a radial spacer (20) located between the members and connecting the members together with an air space between the facing surfaces of the members; and a recording layer (14, 140) on said facing surface of one of the members; characterised in that said recording layer (14, 140) includes concentric tracks divided in sectors with a recordable sector area and a pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a), the pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a) extending radially in line and said radial spacer (20) is bonded to the surface of the pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a) of the recording layer and the facing surface of the other member. An information recording medium as claimed in claim 1, characterised in that it further includes a second recording layer (14, 140) formed on said facing surface of the other member, said second recording layer (14, 140) includes concentric tracks divided in sectors with a second recordable sector area and a second pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a), the second pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a) extending radially in line; and said radial spacer (20) is bonded to respective pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a). An information recording medium as claimed in claim 1, characterised in that the radial spacer (20) is connected to the inner and outer spacers (15, 16). An information recording medium as claimed in claim 3, characterised in that the inner and outer spacers and the radial spacer is an integral unit. An information recording medium as claimed in any preceding claim, characterised in that the recording layer (14) is of annular form and the pre-formatted sector address area (14a, 140a) is of wedge-shaped form extending radially of the disc- shaped members (11, 12). An information recording medium as claimed in any preceding claim, in which there are a plurality of radial spacers, and characterised in that they are bonded to the surface of respective pre-formatted sector address areas of the recording layer and the facing surface of the other member.

Inventors: OGINO, NOBORU
Applicants: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA, TOSHIBA INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY LTD.
Application year: 1988
Main classification: G11B7
IPC codes: G11B7