May 31, 2007 / Vol. 5, Supplement / CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS S95
A new kind of compatible compact optical picking-up head
with two laser waves
Hui Zhou (
ïïï
), Jiquan Luo (
), Xiaojian Zhang (
),
Shasha Wang (
), Xiaofei Yan (
ììì
), and Hao Ruan (
)
High Density Optical Storage Lab, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics,
China Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800
With the advent of HDTV, the high density DVD (HD DVD) and blue-ray disk (BD) series will become
the mainstream. Compared with BD, HD DVD has lower producing cost and sailing price, and it can be
compatible with DVD. We design a new kind of compact optical picking-up head (PUH) based on HD
DVD technology. It is simple in structure and small in size. It has two laser waves, and can be compatible
with DVD downward. The PUH is mainly composed of a penta prism, a collimating lens, and an objective
lens. The light route is analyzed using ZEMAX, and the results turn out to be successful. The penta prism
is used to achieve a much longer optical path, so that the PUH size is reduced.
OCIS codes: 210.0210, 210.4770, 120.0120, 120.4570.
In the information era, we need highly advanced infor-
mation storage technology. With the advent of more
and more sophisticated digital consuming products and
high-definition TV, the next generation disk storage tech-
nology of high density DVD (HD DVD) and blue-ray disk
(BD) series that have higher storage volume will become
the mainstream
[1]
. Compared with BD, HD DVD has
more advantages. It uses an objective lens of numerical
aperture (NA) of 0.65, and the depth of the protective
layer of the disk is 0.6 mm. So, it can be compatible with
the existing DVD technology easily, and the producing
cost and sailing price is much lower. This is very impor-
tant in the competition of marketing.
Because a single sided single layered HD DVD disk
has a content of 15G, it is quite important to enhance
the reading speed of the picking-up head (PUH). One
method of improving the speed is to reduce the weight
and size of the PUH, and then it can reduce the inertia to
make the PUH focusing and finding the track faster. It is
required that a HD DVD system can be compatible with
a DVD system downwardly. So a structure that uses two
laser diodes (LDs) is necessary, which can give out blue
ray of 405 nm and red ray of 650 nm respectively.
A common structure of a HD DVD system is given in
Fig. 1. It uses a blue ray LD, and the laser first passes
through a beam splitter (BS), a collimating lens (CL),
a reflective mirror(RM), an objective lens (OL), then it
reaches the HD DVD disk and is reflected by the disk.
And then the laser passes back through the OL, the RM,
the CL, the BS. Finally it is received by a photodetector
(PD). The whole system has too many optical elements,
and each element need some space. So the PUH system
has a big size and a loose structure, which will delay
the tracking and focusing servo time. Furthermore, the
PUH system is fairly strict to the laser beam quality and
optical aberration. So each element is needed to be cal-
ibrated precisely to make sure that no extra aberration
is produced, which increases the technical difficulty.
In this paper we design a new kind of compact opti-
cal PUH based on HD DVD technology. It is simple in
structure and small in size. It has two laser waves, and
can be compatible with DVD downwardly. In the PUH
we use a special element in the shape of a penta prism
to make the optical path shorter and make the PUH size
smaller.
In order to realize the reading and writing of HD DVD
and DVD compatibly, we will use LDs with two different
wavelengths: 405 and 650 nm. The LDs work separately
and do not interrupt each other. Figure 2 gives the il-
lustration of the structure of the picking-up system. It
includes a main optical path that is used by two laser
beams together. Along the light path, there is a BS,
a penta prism, a collimator, an OL sequentially. And
then the light is focused on the optical disk. So, the
recording layer should be just in the focal plane of the
objective lens. After the light reflected by the recording
layer, it will travel through the original path reversely.
Fig. 1. Common structure of a HD DVD system.
Fig. 2. Optical path and structure of the designed picking-up
system.
1671-7694/2007/S10S95-04
c
2007 Chinese Optics Letters