Optical information reproducing method and optical information processing apparatus

摘要

An optical information reproducing method of the present invention is used for an optical recording medium (1). The optical recording medium (1) includes a recording layer (15) containing information and a mask layer (13) that is located close to the recording layer (15) and includes a nonlinear optical material whose optical properties are changed in accordance with incident light intensity. The method includes irradiating the optical recording medium (1) with convergent light that is polarized in a first direction and dividing reflected light from the optical recording medium (1) into a first polarized component that is polarized in the first direction and a second polarized component that is polarized in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The second polarized component is used to detect a reproduction signal. <IMAGE>