PURPOSE: To make optical recording at a high density with a single recording layer by subjecting an optical recording medium having the recording layer which is uniformly dispersed with a recording material having anisotropy in the absorption of light to a linear polarization having different planes of polarization at the time of an erasing, recording or reproducing.

CONSTITUTION: The recording material F-10 having the chemical structure expressed by formula and methyl methacrylate are dissolved in methylene chloride to prepare a soln. having, for example, 10-2mol/l concn. the soln. of the recording material prepd. in such a manner is uniformly applied on a quartz substrate by a spin coating method under the conditions of 2,000rpm rotating speed to form the recording layer. This recording layer is recorded by the linearly polarized light of, for example, 1μm spot diameter, 360nm wavelength, 100mJ/cm2 intensity and electric vector parallel with the tracking direction. The absorbance changes to 60% as compared to the initial state when the recording is reproduced by the linearly polarized light parallel with the tracking direction having 360nm wavelength and 10mJ/cm2 intensity. The recording is executed as only the recording material the light absorption direction of which exists in the direction perpendicular to the tracking direction causes a photoreaction in this way.