Coded modulation and precoding for electron-trapping optical memories

This paper develops coding and signal processing approaches for a novel optical recording channel that arises from electron-trapping phosphor materials. The recording medium allows multiple reads and writes, and one important feature is that the read process serves to erase the disk. This feature would enable vendors of prerecorded video to provide customers with one-time services. For applications where this feature is not desirable, the data can be immediately rewritten. From a communications viewpoint, the most important feature of this new channel is that, subject to a peak constraint, it supports a continuum of recording levels. The combination of read and write processes creates a partial-response channel, and the ability to write a continuum of levels makes it possible to employ precoding techniques, such as the one developed by Tomlinson (1971) and by Miyakawa and Harashima (1969). This is fundamentally different from magnetic data storage, where the read/write process creates a partial-response channel but where it is only possible to write two levels at the input to that channel. This paper shows that the use of precoding and coset codes can significantly improve upon the recording densities (and recording rates) that can be achieved by using M -ary run length constrained codes to eliminate intersymbol interference (ISI) at the output of the read/write process. The approach presented here is applicable to any optical recording channel that supports a continuum of recording levels.