Optical recording medium and method for making the same

摘要

In phase change optical recording media wherein initialization process of the recording layer has been the rate determining and cost-increasing factor in the production of the medium, the production cost is reduced by reducing the time required for the initialization and simplification of the initialization process. Stable writing/reading properties are also realized from immediately after the initialization. The present invention provides an optical recording medium comprising a substrate and a recording layer formed over the substrate, wherein the recording layer comprises two or more unit recording layers wherein adjacent two unit recording layers are constituted from different materials and mixture layers between the two adjacent unit recording layers containing all of the elements included in the adjacent two unit recording layers; at least one of the two adjacent unit recording layers is a crystalline layer; and the overall composition of the recording layer falls within the composition of a phase change recording material.