High-performance readout and recording by a combination aperture.

A solid immersion lens combined with a conical dielectric tip exhibits good resolution and efficiency in reading and recording data marks on optical storage media. We demonstrate a combination aperture that produces ~200-nm full-width 1/e(2) spot size and achieves 50% optical efficiency in an edge-scan experiment. A comparison of recording with the combination aperture, with an unmodified solid immersion lens, and with a far-field system is made.