Optical information recording medium, manufacturing method of the same and optical information recording and reproducing apparatus

An optical information recording and reproducing apparatus comprising:

• an optical information recording medium including a reflecting layer, an optical information recording layer and a super-resolution layer which are formed on a substrate;
• a pickup for reading and writing optical information from/to the optical information recording medium;
• and a motor for driving and rotating the optical information recording medium,
• wherein the optical information recording apparatus includes the recording medium of a metal oxide or compound semiconductor, and
• wherein the super-resolution layer of the recording medium has a wavelength λg corresponding to band gap energy Eg in stationary state and a difference Δλ=λ−λg from a wavelength λ of a laser beam to be irradiated on the optical information recording medium for information read/write is more than −100 nm to less than 60 nm, and a transmittance T0 of the material in the stationary state at the wavelength λ changes to a transmittance T such that an expression ΔT=|T−T0|/T0×100 becomes over 10%;
• wherein the super-resolution layer is formed of a mixture of Fe2O3 and one selected from Cr2O3, CeO2, MnO, ZnO, NiO, CoO, MgO, CuO, BaO, Y2O3 and CdO.

An optical information recording medium including at least a reflecting layer, an optical information recording layer, a super-resolution layer and a protective layer which are formed on a substrate, wherein

• the super-resolution layer is a thin layer whose an optical constant changes nonlinearly due to a red shift of its band gap when heated by irradiation with a laser beam for information read/write, and
• the super-resolution layer is made of solid solution, compound or mixture of metal oxides containing two or more types of metal ions of the same valence, and
• ion radius unconformity ΔR=|(RMi−RMj)/RMj | between ion radii RMi and RMj of two types of metal ions Mi and Mj arbitrarily selected from the two or more types of metal ions is 8% or less, and
• a difference ΔE=Eg−E between band gap energy Eg of the mixture of the metal oxides and energy E corresponding to a wavelength of the laser beam is 0.4 eV or more and 1.4 eV or less.