Patent ID: 7042824

Claim:
An optical multi-level recording medium, including a reflective layer and a recording layer, and constructed in a manner that a recording mark is formed on the recording layer by irradiating a laser beam so as to record information, plural virtual recording cells being continuously formed in a relative moving direction to the laser beamon the recording layer, each of which has an arbitrary unit length and a unit width perpendicular to the unit length in the relative moving direction, five stages or more irradiation times being set with respect to the virtual recording cell so that the irradiation time becomes long successively from the first to final stages, a power average value of laser beam in a specific irradiation time of the plural-stage irradiation times being set so as to become larger than a power average value of another irradiation time longer than the specific irradiation time, and recording marks being formed in the virtual recording cell and giving five stages or more different optical reflectance to the virtual recording cell when the laser beam is irradiated to the virtual recording cell.