Optical recording medium and optical recording method

摘要

The irradiation time and/or the irradiation power of a laser beam is varied to perform multi-level recording on a recording layer in five stages or more. On the recording layer 12 of an optical recording medium 10, defined contiguously are virtual recording cells 40 within a groove 16 along tracks arranged at track pitches of 1 to 1.5 mum. The time and/or the irradiation irradiation power of the laser beam is modulated in five stages or more corresponding to the information to be recorded on each of the virtual recording cells 40 in order to form recording marks 48A-48G having five stages or more of different sizes and/or optical transmittance. The overall optical reflectivity of each of the virtual recording cells 40 is modulated in multi-stages to vary in five stages or more the entire reflectivity level of the reading laser beam used upon reading in the virtual recording cell including the outside of the recording mark.