Patent ID: 8435619

Claim:
An information recording medium with respect to which information can be recorded or reproduced by irradiation with an optical beam, the information recording medium comprising: a second interface layer; a recording layer; and a first interface layer, in this order from the optical beam incident side, wherein the first interface layer and the second interface layer are disposed in contact with the recording layer, the second interface layer contains M1 (where M1 is at least one element selected from Nb, Y, Dy, Ti, Si and Al), Cr and oxygen (O), the first interface layer contains M2 (where M2 is at least one element selected from Nb, Y, Dy, Ti, Si, Al, Zr and Hf), Cr and oxygen (O) the first interface layer and the second interface layer each contain Cr in a range of 50 mol % or less in terms of an oxide (Cr 2 O 3 ), and when a refractive index of the first interface layer with respect to the optical beam is denoted as n1 and a refractive index of the second interface layer with respect to the optical beam is denoted as n2, a relationship of n1<n2 is satisfied.