Rewritable optical-disk fabrication with an optical recording material made of naphthalocyanine and polythiophene

A novel rewritable optical disk that uses an optical recording material made of naphthalocyanine and polythiophene as the recording layer is described. In this system the complex refractive index of the recording material changes reversibly, depending on the aggregation states of naphthalocyanine induced by a conformation change of the polythiophene matrix. After recording, the imaginary part of the refractive index of the recording material increases to three times that of the unrecorded part, at a wavelength of 790 nm at which a semiconductor laser emits light. The fabricated polythiophene naphthalocyanine optical disk shows a high reflectivity of 58% and a large readout modulation amplitude (I(11)/I(top)) of 0.63. It is confirmed that the polythiophene/naphthalocyanine optical disk can be played back on conventional compact-disc players even after ten cycles of rewriting.