High density mastering using electron beam

A mastering system for the next-generation digital versatile disk (DVD) is required to have a higher resolution compared with the conventional mastering systems. We have developed an electron beam mastering machine which features a thermal field emitter and a vacuum sealed air spindle motor. Beam displacement caused by magnetic fluctuation with spindle rotation was about 60 nm(p-p) in both the radial and tangential directions. Considering the servo gain of a read-out system, it has little influence on the read-out signal in terms of tracking errors and jitters. The disk performance was evaluated by recording either the 8/16 modulation signal or a groove on the disk. The electron beam recording showed better jitter values from the disk playback than those from a laser beam recorder The deviation of track pitch was 44 nm(p-p). We also confirmed the high density recording with a capacity reaching 30 GB.