Numerical simulation on read-out characteristics of the planar aperture-mounted head with a minute scatterer

Recently, various researches on optical recording based on near-field optic al principles have been conducted for higher data storage density. However, there is a problem of the trade-off between signal output and spatial reso lution, especially when an aperture-type near-field optical head is utilize d for high speed data-readout. In order to solve this problem, we propose a novel near-field optical head, the planar aperture-mounted head with a min ute scatterer. and analyze its read-out performance through the three-dimen sional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) method. Our simulations reve al that the Silver scatterer placed at the center of the planar aperture st rongly enhances optical energy due to the local surface plasmon excitation, and that this head has the potential to realize high resolution and high s ignal output simultaneously.