A magneto-optical head lens actuator was developed for use at a high information bit rate and high density recording. A high bit rate at the outer diameter of a 300 mm disk (velocity = 27.3 m/s) was attained by mounting an aspherical plastic lens and optimizing the shape of lens holder for achieving higher spurious frequency over 30 kHz, utilizing the finite element method (FEM). Another approach was focused on reducing gain peak at the natural frequnecy by adopting "multi-wire" and a silicone "gel box" damping system for stabilizing the pull-in characteristic for focusing and tracking. By the actuator realization, a high density recording of 0.34 µm/bit and high information bit rate 80 Mbps (1, 7 code modulation) recording were attained.

Tilt margins for disk and lens for a magneto-optical (MO) head were studied for designing a disk system for use with objective lenses having numerical apertures (NA) of 0.55, 0.60, and 0.65. The tilt margins were examined to determine the aberration characteristics of objective lenses and bit error rate (BER) by recording and reproducing signal. In preparing the optical head for testing disk and lens tilt margins, the aberrations were measured by image processing from the CCD area sensor for the spot image of the focused beam, and BER dependencies on the tilting of lens and disk were obtained at the velocity of the outer diameter of the MO disk at the bit rate of 80-Mbps (1, 7 code modulation) recording. According to the aberration and BER characteristics, the limitation for effective wavefront aberration would be 0.05λ rms, the tilt margins corresponded to BER limitation at the level of 3*10-5. The disk margins for NA=0.55, 0.6, and 0.65 were 0.4, 0.2, and 0.1 degrees. The lens tilt margins for NA=0.55, 0.6, and 0.65 were 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 degrees.