JPS628343A - Optical card - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an optical card in which a side recording and reproducing information by light is protected with compactness by forming at least one part to be freely folded so as to overlap card faces. CONSTITUTION:An optical is designed to be folded at the center. A card 1a is folded at carrying to be overlapped on a card 1b. In the twofold optical card, the protection layer 3 is provided to the opposed faces at folding and a substrate 4 is provided to the other faces, then no flaw or dirt is given to the protection layer 3 because the faces are folded at, e.g., carrying, and in recording or reproducing information via the protection layer by means of a laser light, troubles such as mis-recording, mis-reproduction and disabled reproduction the solved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to an optical card that can record and reproduce information using light.

[Technical background and problems of the invention]

Conventionally, information recording cards have been used as, for example, cash cards, card cards, and credit cards. These devices usually have a black stripe on the top of their surface, and various information is stored as magnetic information in the black stripe portion. However, this type of magnetic card stores only a small amount of information, making it impossible to apply it to bank passbooks, travel checks, identification cards, medical record management for prescription drugs, etc. there were. In order to be applied to such fields, some optical discs, optical cards, etc., which can record and reproduce information using light, have been proposed. Among these, optical cards in particular have been proposed that have a similar appearance to conventional magnetic cards and have a recording layer on one side that can store information using light. However, since such optical cards are carried by the user all the time and used as needed, the surface of the card gets scratches, dirt, etc. when carried. The problem was that the light was affected by scratches, dirt, etc., resulting in incorrect information or inability to play.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide an optical card that can be folded and that can protect a recording layer that can record and reproduce information using light.

[Summary of the invention]

[Summary of the present invention to achieve the above object is that an optical card having a recording layer capable of recording and reproducing information using light is characterized in that at least one portion of the card surface is formed to be bendable so that the card surface can be polymerized. It is.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing an example of the structure of an optical card. In the figure, an optical card 1 is formed by laminating a protective layer 3, a recording layer 2, and a substrate 4.

The protective layer 3 is laminated on the upper surface of the recording layer 2, and is provided to protect the recording layer 2 from, for example, scratches, dirt, or oxidation.

This protective layer No. is made of a transparent material in order to record information by forming holes (bits) in the recording layer 2 by passing through the protective layer 3 using, for example, a laser beam irradiated from an optical head, which will be described later. There is. Next, the recording layer 2 is for recording information by melting the irradiated portion of the recording layer with the energy of a laser beam irradiated from an optical head, which will be described later, to form a focus. This recording layer 2 is designed to dissolve at a lower temperature than the other protective layer 3 and the substrate 4 by mixing, for example, silver particles.
It is now possible to form pits without affecting the Further, a guide groove 5 is formed in this recording layer 2. The guide groove 5 has, for example, a continuous concave and convex shape, and acts as a guide for the optical head when recording and reproducing information by the optical head, so that the information can be accurately recorded and reproduced. Next, a substrate 4 is provided to prevent, for example, warpage of the recording layer 2 laminated on the upper surface thereof. The storage ff1Ji13, the recording layer 2, and the substrate 4 can be made of organic or inorganic materials. Note that if the guide groove 5 is not required, it may not be provided. Further, the shape of the guide groove 5 may be a U-shape as shown in the same figure, or may be formed into a ■-shape.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the appearance of an optical card according to the present invention. In the figure, the optical card is a card-shaped optical card that can be bent at the center. When this optical card is unfolded, it is parallel to the card 16 in the figure. For example, when carrying the card, the card 1a can be bent and stacked with the card 16. This 2
In an optical card that can be folded, when the protective layer 3 is provided on the opposing surface and the substrate 4 is provided on the other surface when the card is bent, the protective layer 3 will be folded when being carried, for example.
Since no scratches, dirt, etc. will adhere to the disc, problems such as erroneous recording, erroneous reproduction, and inability to reproduce that occur when recording and reproducing information through this protective layer using laser light, for example, can be solved. I can do it.

Incidentally, if these obstacles are not a problem, or if the recording capacity is to be further increased, a recording layer may be provided that allows recording and reproduction even from the side that does not come into contact with the folded state. Further, the recording layer may be provided only on one of the opposing surfaces when the optical card is folded.

FIG. 2 is an external perspective view showing a modified example of the optical card shown in FIG. 1. FIG. The optical card shown in the figure has two bendable parts, whereas the optical card shown in Fig. 1 has one bendable part. . Similarly to the optical card shown in FIG. 1, in this optical card, when the cards are spread out, card 1a and card lb,
lc are parallel to each other, and a protective layer 3 is provided on the top surface of the optical card when it is unfolded, and when it is folded, the protective layer 3 is between the card 1a and the cards lb and lc. There is. By providing the protective layer 3 in this manner, it is also possible to prevent scratches, dirt, etc. from adhering to the protective layer 3 as explained in FIG. Also, in this case, if the above-mentioned obstacles are not a problem, a recording layer may be provided that allows recording and reproduction from the side that does not come into contact with the folded state.

FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view illustrating the operation of recording and reproducing information using the optical card according to the present invention. In the same figure, the one indicated by 6 is a recording layer in which information is recorded by condensing a laser beam and forming pits in the recording layer 2 provided on the optical card 1 by the heat of the laser beam. This is an optical head that can reproduce information from. This optical head 6 is attached to, for example, a linear actuator so that it can move in the directions of arrows A and B shown in the figure. At this time, the optical card 1 is movable in the directions of arrows C and D in the figure by a transport device (not shown).

The operation of the above configuration will be explained.

FIG. 5 is an external perspective view of the optical card recording/reproducing apparatus according to the present invention. The optical head 6, linear actuator, etc. shown in FIG. 4 are incorporated into the optical card recording/reproducing device 8 shown in FIG. 5, and are controlled by a control circuit not shown. On the front of this recording and reproducing device, there is a display section 11 that can display information to be recorded or reproduced information, and at the bottom of this display section 8 there is an insertion slot 8a into which an optical card is inserted, and information to be recorded or reproduced. Keyboard 1 for inputting via a control unit (not shown)
Consists of 0.

When inserting an optical card through the insertion slot 8a of the recording/reproducing device 8, the optical card 1 is spread out, and for example, in the case of the optical card shown in FIG. 1, the cards 1a and lb are inserted in parallel. The inserted optical card 1 is set under transport control by a transport device (not shown). As shown in FIG. 4, the set optical card 1 has pits formed in the recording layer 2 by the heat of the laser beam irradiated from the optical head 6 to record information, and is irradiated from the optical head 6 during reproduction. The information is reproduced without affecting the pits formed in the recording layer 2 by lowering the output of the laser beam. The optical head 6 and the optical card 1 during this recording and reproduction
For example, when the optical head 6 is set at the position shown in FIG. 4, it moves in the direction A in the figure while controlling the irradiation of a laser beam in response to a start signal from the keyboard 10, for example, when the optical head 6 is set at the position shown in FIG. Record information as a pit at the bottom of the When recording to this guide groove is completed, the optical card 1
This time, control the movement of the optical head 6 in the direction C or direction D in the figure, and set the optical head 6 in another guide groove.

moves and controls the optical head 6 in the B direction to record information. Information can be recorded by repeating this operation. It should be noted that during reproduction, information is reproduced using a similar operation. Further, the number of optical heads 6 is not limited to one, and a plurality of optical heads 6 may be provided to simultaneously record or reproduce information in a plurality of guide grooves. When recording or reproduction is finished, by pressing an end button (not shown) provided on the keyboard 10, the optical card is ejected from the insertion slot 8a by a transport device (not shown). By folding the optical card with information recorded in this way and protecting the surface on which the information is recorded, for example, even during reproduction, the protective layer 3 will not be scratched or soiled, so that accurate information can be reproduced. By folding it, it can be made more compact than a single leaf optical card with the same storage capacity.

It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and includes various modifications within the scope of the gist of the present invention.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As detailed above, since the present invention can be bent, it can be made more compact than a single-leaf optical card with the same storage capacity, and when a recording layer is provided on the surface that comes into contact when it is bent. It is possible to provide an optical card that can protect the side that records and reproduces information using light.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an embodiment of the optical card of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of a modified example of the optical card of the present invention, and FIG.
4 is a schematic perspective view showing the recording and reproducing operation on the optical card, and FIG. 5 is an external perspective view of the recording and reproducing device for the optical card. 2...Recording layer. Figure 2

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) In an optical card having a recording layer capable of recording and reproducing information using light, at least one
An optical card characterized by having flexible parts. (2) The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the recording layer is provided on a surface facing each other when bent. (3) The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the recording layer is provided on one of the surfaces facing each other when bent.