Laser writing of discontinuous metal films

Discontinuous films of noble metals formed by thin-film nucleation demonstrate attractive properties for optical storage applications. Writing energies lower than those for more conventional tellurium based systems have been achieved using 2.0-3.0-nm gold layers in a trilayer configuration. The discontinuous nature of the film is shown to greatly influence the writing characteristics of these films. This is due to the fact that written spots are now formed through laser induced sintering of the small metallic islands, rather than by film ablation that occurs for continuous films.