Thin tellurium films for bit-oriented information storage

Information can be stored on thin absorbing films by ablation. In this process, a laser beam, focused to a spot about 1 μm in diameter for a short time, creates a liquid pool, which exactly like a soap film, soon bursts and the bare substrate is exposed in a small circular region. Both for sensitivity and writing speed useful materials must be deposited at thicknesses of order 10 nm. Further, to create stores of 1011 bits, areas of approximately 650 mm2 must be deposited with error rates of 10-6 or less. These requirements have been met with tellurium films and the structural and optical properties of the films, particularly as they relate to data storage needs, will also be mentioned. (author)