Abstract
Dynamic erasing process is of great importance to increase the data transfer rate of rewritable phase change optical disks. Two disk structures with the GeSbTe phase change layer were employed. The first one is a disk with the conventional four-layered structure while the other one is a five-layered disk with an thermal buffer layer of Si. The dynamic erasing process of the GeSbTe disks was investigated through studying the dynamic crystallization behavior of these disks, which can be characterized by the changes of oscilloscopy signals such as mark length and amplitude. The correlations between the erasing power and the mark length and the amplitude were established. For the shorter marks the mark edge growth from the boundary between the amorphous mark and the crystalline space dominated the whole erasing process. However, for the longer marks, both mark edge growth and nucleation in the mark center and subsequent growth contributed to the dynamic erasing process. 10 refs.