Patent ID: 6980497

Claim:
An optical disk recording apparatus comprising: an optical system for diffracting an optical beam emitted from a light source to form a main beam for use in writing a data signal on a disk and a succeeding sub-beam following the main beam, and for irradiating the disk with the main beam and the succeeding sub-beam, wherein the positional relationship of the main beam and the sub-beam is defined such that when writing a data signal on the disk, a site on the disk at which a data signal is written by the main beam is irradiated with the succeeding sub-beam afterwards; a photodetector including a succeeding light receiving sub-region for detecting light of the succeeding sub-beam reflected from the disk; a first light source control circuit for controlling switching of an emission power of the light source between a recording level for forming a recording mark on the disk and a recording pause level for not forming a recording mark on the disk in accordance with a data signal to be written on the disk; a sampling circuit for sampling a signal at periods when the emission power of the light source is at predetermined one of the recording level and the recording pause level, among detection signals output from the succeeding sub-beam receiving region of the photodetector; and a recording state detection circuit for detecting the recording state of a data signal written on the disk with the main beam, based on an output signal from the sampling circuit.