Tsuyoshi TSUJIOKA,¹ Toshio HARADA,¹ Minoru KUME,¹ Kazuhiko KUROKI¹ and Masahiro IRIE²

¹New Materials Research Center, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., 1-1 Dainichi Higashimachi, Moriguchi, Osaka, 570 Japan, ²Institute of Advanced Material Study, Kyushu University, 6-1 Kasugakoen, Kasuga, Fukuoka, 816 Japan

(Received February 16, 1995; Accepted June 8, 1995)

The possibility of a super-resolution optical memory using a saturable absorption dye mask layer is theoretically discussed. An equation which estimates the transmittance change of the mask layer has been derived. The numerical simulation shows that an efficient super-resolution is performed when the initial optical density of the mask layer is high.

Key words : optical memory, saturable absorption, super-resolution, optical density