CD Burners
CD burners, also called CD R/W or CD Read/Write, in the years 1999, 2000 and early 2001 sales were overwhelming the market. The CD burner operates with the same principle as the original CD Reader which was that a laser hits the surface of the CD and is reflected back in the Optical Sensor.
However, not all CD's can be written to, for only CD's with a smooth reflective metal layer which protects a layer of photosensitive dye. Initially the dye is transparent, but when the photosensitive dye is heated by a focused beam of light, a laser, of a particular intensity and frequency the dye loses its transparency and becomes opaque to the point where it is impassable by light. The CD Burner, like the original CD player, has a Read Laser, but unlike the Original, it also has a Write laser. The Write laser is more powerful than the Read laser and thereby affecting the CD differently by altering the surface whereas the Read laser just bounces. The Write laser moves in the same fashion as the Read Laser, in a back and forth motion with pre-pressed grooves on the underside to help guide it along the right path. The laser is kept moving at a constant speed along the track by calibrating the rate of spin with the movement of the laser.
When writing to the CD, the Burner simply turns the laser writer off and on, depending on the pattern of 1's and 0's. CD Burners write to CD's at varrying speeds, starting at 1x speed which is the same speed as the reader reads a CD, meaning that 60 minutes worth of music would take 60 minutes to write. |
Laser with the Lens on top
The Track and
Laser which reads and writes all the information