Patent ID: 7088663

Claim:
An information recording apparatus for irradiating a laser beam onto a recording medium and forming recording marks corresponding to recording data, the apparatus comprising: a light source which emits the laser beam; and a control unit which generates a recording pulse signal based on the recording data and drives the light source to irradiate the laser pulse onto the recording medium, wherein the control unit comprises: a test recording unit which records predetermined test recording data while varying a cooling level, the cooling level being a level of a cooling pulse; a reproduction unit which reproduces test recorded data and generates a reproduced signal; and a setting unit which determines the cooling level that provides a target asymmetry value based on a waveform of the reproduced signal and sets the cooling level as an optimum cooling level, wherein the setting unit comprises: a β value computation unit which computes β values from the waveform of the reproduced signal; a storage unit which stores correlations between the β values and asymmetry values; and a unit for determining a cooling level that provides a target asymmetry value as the optimum cooling level based on the computed β values and the correlations.