LS-R economically viable. The need for the disc to be meticulously constructed from many layers of different materials, and the need for the drive to be able to electrically address each layer specifically, may make this solution too expensive for commercialization. In the next generation LS-R may compete with other next-generation optical disc format such as the Holographic versatile disc and Protein-coated disc formats. LS-R LS-R, or the Layer-Selection-Type Recordable Optical Disk, is the term coined by Hitachi in 2003 for a next-generation optical disc technology which allows much larger data storage densities than DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc, by
Optical medium Optical medium An optical medium is material through which electromagnetic waves propagate. It is a form of transmission medium. The permittivity and permeability of the medium define how electromagnetic waves propagate in it. The medium has an "intrinsic impedance", given by where formula_2 and formula_3 are the electric field and magnetic field, respectively. In a region with no electrical conductivity, the expression simplifies to: For example, in free space the intrinsic impedance is called the characteristic impedance of vacuum, denoted "Z", and Waves propagate through a medium with velocity formula_6, where formula_7 is the frequency and formula_8 is the wavelength