This dissertation contains studies on several aspects of the media and system in the optical storage. The main subjects that have been examined are magneto-optical (MO) media, phase-change (PC) media and the optical system used for testing and characterizing these media. In the studies of MO media, we examined the thermomagnetic properties of the TbFeCo film and observed the dynamic behavior of its magnetization reversal. We introduced a novel technique to estimate the thermal coefficients, i.e., thermal conductivity and specific heat of each layer in the MO multilayer stack. In the investigation of PC media, we focused on studying the properties of the light scattered from the bare substrates and the disks coated with the PC media. Relationship between the scattering properties and disk noise spectral density has been found by comparing the results from the scattering measurements and noise measurements. Also, we introduce a novel method to study the crystallization process of PC media, by means of heating up a sample with periodic mark array recorded on it. Shining a laser beam on the mark array and monitoring the signal from one of the 1st orders diffracted beam, we can examine the process of the crystallization and tell the difference between growth-dominated and nucleation-dominated PC media. In the investigation of the system, we designed and implemented a scatterometer which is used to measure the scattered light from the sample.
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