Patent ID: 7376065

Claim:
An optical recording method of recording information to be recorded in a recording layer of a phase-change optical storage medium, the method comprising the steps of: a modulation step of modulating the information to be recorded to generate modulated data; a mark-length generation step of generating desired mark-length data based on the modulated data; and a recording step of generating a recording pulse pattern of recording pulses rising from an erasing power and formed between a recording power larger than the erasing power and a bottom power smaller than the erasing power and of erasing pulses rising from the bottom power to the erasing power, based on the mark-length data, and irradiating a recording light beam onto the recording layer in accordance with the recording pulse pattern to record at least one recorded mark representing the information to be recorded, wherein the recording step uses an optimum erasing power, as the erasing power, the optimum erasing power satisfying an expression (1): 1.000<( R 1/ R 0)<1.030 (1) in which R 0 is a reflectivity exhibited by an un-recorded section of the recording layer, on which no data has ever been recorded, when irradiated with a reproducing light beam, and R 1 is a reflectivity exhibited by the un-recorded section when irradiated with the reproducing light beam after irradiated once with a beam having the erasing power.