Patent ID: 7092343

Claim:
An optical recording and reproducing method for performing at least recording or reproduction of information with respect to an optical recording medium, characterized in that the optical recording medium has a plurality of information-recording layers between one principal plane on a side where light enters said optical recording medium and the other principal plane opposite thereto, a first information-recording layer that is nearest to said other principal plane is formed of a phase-modulation type information-recording layer and a second information-recording layer is formed of a reflectance-modulation type information-recording layer, and upon incidence of light from the side of said one principal plane, recording or reproduction of information is performed by the phase-modulation method with respect to said first information-recording layer, and recording or reproduction of information is performed by the reflectance-modulation method with respect to said second information-recording layer wherein a change rate (R 0 −R)/R 0 in said first information-recording layer of said optical recording medium, where R 0 is reflectance before recording at a position corresponding to the inside of an information-recorded mark and R is reflectance after recording at the same position, is made to be smaller than the modulation factor of a reproduction signal detected from said information-recorded mark, and the same change rate (R 0 −R)/R 0 with respect to said information-recorded mark in said second information-recording layer is made to be equal to or larger than the modulation factor of a reproduction signal detected from said information-recorded mark.