An optical disc device includes: an optical pickup including a first laser light source that emits laser light, an objective lens that focuses the laser light emitted from the first laser light source onto an optical disc, and a light receiving element that receives reflected light from the optical disc, and performs photoelectric conversion on the reflected light received to output a received-light signal; an FS signal generator that generates an FS signal indicating the light amount of the reflected light from the optical disc, based on the received-light signal from the light receiving element; and a dirt determiner that determines that dirt is present in the optical pickup, when the peak level of the FS signal is less than a dirt determination threshold, and controls the light receiving element to increase the peak level of the received-light signal from the light receiving element.

An optical disc device includes: an optical pickup including a first laser light source that emits laser light, an objective lens that focuses the laser light emitted from the first laser light source onto an optical disc, and a light receiving element that receives reflected light from the optical disc, and performs photoelectric conversion on the reflected light received to output a received-light signal; an FS signal generator that generates an FS signal indicating the light amount of the reflected light from the optical disc, based on the received-light signal from the light receiving element; and a dirt determiner that determines that dirt is present in the optical pickup, when the peak level of the FS signal is less than a dirt determination threshold, and controls the light receiving element to increase the peak level of the received-light signal from the light receiving element.

A Data Storage Device (DSD) includes a magnetic storage medium and a head configured to read and write data using a current default write policy that affects an amount of power output by at least one write-assistive component of the head. One or more experimental writes are performed by writing data on the magnetic storage medium using an experimental write policy for the at least one write-assistive component, and the data is read from the magnetic storage medium. An experimental performance of the one or more experimental writes is evaluated based on the reading of the data. An experimental prediction value is determined indicating a predicted usable life of the head based on the evaluation of the experimental performance. Based on the experimental prediction value, it is determined whether to change the current default write policy for the at least one write-assistive component for future non-experimental writes.

An optical data-storage system comprises a laser, an imaging optic, and associated computer logic. The laser is configured to emit a pulsed wavefront having uniform phase and polarization. The imaging optic is configured to modulate the phase and polarization of different portions of the wavefront by different amounts, and to diffract light from the different portions to a substrate with writeable optical properties. The logic is configured to receive data and to control modulation of the phase and polarization such that the light diffracted from the imaging optic writes the data to the substrate.

An optical data-storage system comprises a laser, an imaging optic, and associated computer logic. The laser is configured to emit a pulsed wavefront having uniform phase and polarization. The imaging optic is configured to modulate the phase and polarization of different portions of the wavefront by different amounts, and to diffract light from the different portions to a substrate with writeable optical properties. The logic is configured to receive data and to control modulation of the phase and polarization such that the light diffracted from the imaging optic writes the data to the substrate.

A method of delivering optical pulses to a substrate comprises directing a focused beam from a source of optical pulses along a propagation direction onto a substrate; moving the substrate relative to the beam in a plane substantially orthogonal to the propagation direction and continuously along a first direction that includes spaced apart row locations on the substrate, and delivering a plurality of optical pulses from source as the beam reaches each row location; and between delivering the optical pulses at consecutive row locations, moving the beam relative to the substrate in one or more successive discrete movements along a second direction in the plane orthogonal to the first direction, to direct the beam to one or more spaced apart column locations on the substrate, and delivering a plurality of optical pulses from the source at each column location.

An example system may include a first vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) that includes a first integrated polarization locking structure to produce a polarized optical data signal. The system may also comprise a second VCSEL that includes a second integrated polarization locking structure, the second integrated polarization locking structure orthogonal to the first integrated polarization locking structure, to produce an orthogonally polarized optical data signal. Lenses may be disposed on the substrate opposite the first VCSEL, to collimate the polarized optical data signal, and opposite the second VCSEL to collimate the orthogonally polarized optical data signal. A polarization division multiplexer may combine the first collimated polarized optical data signal and the second collimated orthogonally polarized optical data signal.

The present invention relates to a method of concurrently storing visible grey scale or color information of an image and additional digital information on a data carrier.

The present invention relates to a method of concurrently storing visible grey scale or color information of an image and additional digital information on a data carrier.

A data storage medium for storing digital data. The medium includes a mixture of different nano-sized materials, each of the nano-sized materials having a respective optical transition profile characterizing an optical transition of the nano-sized material and covering a respective wavelength range, wherein a combined optical transition profile of the mixture covers an extended wavelength range as compared to the respective wavelength ranges of the respective optical transition profiles of the different nano-sized materials, and wherein one or more of the different nano-sized materials is photo-reactive to selectively vary a respective absorption/emission band upon irradiation to encode digital data in the combined optical transition profile of the mixture.