Compact Fiber Laser and Fiber Readout System ...

We developed a compact and high-power mode-locked fiber laser for multilayered optical memories. The average power and pulse width of the output pulse from the fiber laser that we developed were 109 mW and 2.1 ps, respectively. The dispersion of the output pulse was compensated with an external single-mode fiber of 2.5 m length. The pulse was compressed from 2.1 ps to 93 fs by dispersion compensation. We proposed a fiber confocal microscope as an alignment-free readout system of multilayered optical memories. The fiber confocal microscope does not require fine pinhole position alignment because the fiber core is used as the point light source and the pinhole, and both of which are always located at the conjugated point. The configuration reduces the required accuracy of pinhole position alignment. The fiber confocal microscope can also achieve a compact pickup head. Recording layers in a multilayered medium could be detected with an axial resolution of approximately 900 nm. We demonstrated eight-layer readout with the fiber confocal microscope.