Patent ID: 7859979

Claim:
A laser power controller comprising: an output control section to control a laser light output level of an optical head that applies laser light onto a disk to record data to be a prescribed value; a holding section to hold a laser control level preceding a switch timing to switch a laser output level during recording as a previous level; and a control switch section to switch the laser light output level to the prescribed value from the output control section or the previous level held in the holding section according to the switch timing wherein the control switch section comprises: a selector to switch between control of the laser light output level according to the previous level held in the holding section and control of the laser light output level by the output control section; and a switch signal generator to generate a switch signal to control switching of the selector, the switch signal generator generating the switch signal based on a detection signal to detect a track change between a land track and a groove track, and a sample/hold pulse.