Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Including aperture
Patent
1988-08-16
1990-10-23
Ryan, Patrick
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Structurally defined web or sheet
Including aperture
428156, 428913, 156233, 264104, 264106, 430495, 430945, B32B 300
Patent
active
049651188
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to a technology to allow flexible optical information recording media, particularly optical disks of the laser-readout type, to have flexibility by thinning them, and to make an improvement such that they are suitable for mass production.
BACKGROUND ART
Optical information recording media represented by optical disks have the following merits as compared to the magnetic information recording media: (1) Recording density is high; (2) Reproduction can be conducted with no contact with the media, with the resultant decreased likelihood of the influence of scratches or dusts; (3) Serious damage does not occur even if they are touched by hand, resulting in easy handling; (4) Readout pick-up only undergoes less consumption; (5) Various reproduction modes are available, and the like, and they have made rapid progress in recent years. For information recorded, there are a wide variety of data used for music, images and/or computers.
In the case of manufacturing recording media only for reproduction, e.g., optical disks, etc., there are employed an injection method or a compression method. In these methods, a metal mold is provided. The metal mold is an original block on which information to be recorded is recorded as an uneven or irregular pattern. In the injection method, resin, e.g., polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), or polycarbonate (PC), etc. is injected into the metal mold, and in the compression method, resin is compressed to the metal mold. Thus, by repeating resin injection or compression using a metal mold serving as an original block, a great deal of replicas are manufactured.
The conventional prior art as stated above have the following problems.
(1) Since conventional optical disks have a thick, rigid medium, they have a large capacity and take up a broad space, so that they are inconvenient to carry. In addition, broad exhibition space is required at the time of selling.
(2) With the conventional methods of manufacturing optical disks, it is difficult to carry out mass production. As previously described, it is required for the injection method to inject thermoplastic resin into the metal mold vessel under a pressurized condition. On the other hand, with the compression method, it is required to mold-press thermoplastic resin into the metal mold while heating it, and thereafter to remove the resin from the metal mold after the resin is cooled until its temperature is below the thermal deformation temperature. Accordingly, it takes considerable time for replicating one optical disk.
(3) Since a metal mold is exposed to high temperatures in the conventional manufacturing methods for an optical disk, if it is repeatedly used for a long time, its surface is oxidized and thus and uneven pattern is deformed, resulting in lowered reproducibility of information to be recorded.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
A first object of this invention is to provide an optical information recording medium which is of the thin type and is flexible so that it is convenient for carrying and/or selling.
A second object of this invention is to provide a manufacturing method and a manufacturing apparatus suitable for mass production of flexible optical information recording media.
A third object of this invention is to provide a reproducing method capable of precisely reproducing a flexible optical information recording medium.
A fourth object of this invention is to provide a special adapter permitting a flexible optical information recording medium to be reproduced with a reproducing device for an ordinary optical information recording medium presently being popularized.
A fifth object of this invention is to provide a method capable of mass-producing recording media equivalent to ordinary optical information recording media presently being popularized by utilizing a flexible optical information recording medium.
(1) The first feature of this invention resides in an optical information recording medium for recording digital information as an uneven pattern corresponding thereto,
wherei
REFERENCES:
patent: 4335173 (1982-06-01), Caraballo
patent: 4547444 (1985-10-01), Bell et al.
Kazahaya Nobuaki
Kodera Tokio
Dai Nippon Insatsu Kabushiki Kaisha
Ryan Patrick
LandOfFree
Flexible optical information recording medium and method of manu does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Flexible optical information recording medium and method of manu, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Flexible optical information recording medium and method of manu will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-765697