Optical disc drive (ODD) is a disk drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the

visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only read from discs, but recent drives are commonly both readers and recorders, also called burners or writers. Compact discs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs are common types of optical media which can be read and recorded by such drives. The most important part of an optical disc drive is an optical path, placed in a pickup head (PUH), usually consisting of semiconductor laser, a lens for guiding the laser beam, and photodiodes detecting the light reflection from disc's surface.

Initially, CD lasers with a wavelength of 780 nm were used, being within infrared range. For DVDs, the wavelength was reduced to 650 nm (red color), and the wavelength for Blu-ray Disc was reduced to 405 nm (violet color).

Two main servomechanisms are used; the first one to maintain a correct distance between lens and disc, and ensure the laser beam is focused on a small laser spot on the disc. The second servo moves a head along the disc's radius, keeping the beam on a groove, a continuous spiral data path.

On read only media (ROM), during the manufacturing process the groove, made of pits, is pressed on a flat surface, and called land. Because the depth of the pits is approximately onequarter to one-sixth of the laser's wavelength, the reflected beam's phase is shifted in relation to the incoming reading beam, causing mutual destructive interference and reducing the reflected beam's intensity. This is detected by photodiodes that output electrical signals.

A recorder encodes (or burns) data onto a recordable CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, or BD-R disc (called a blank) by selectively heating parts of an organic dye layer with a laser. This changes the reflectivity of the dye, thereby creating marks that can be read like the pits and lands on pressed discs. For recordable discs, the process is permanent and the media can be written to only once. While the reading laser is usually not stronger than 5 mW, the writing laser is considerably more powerful. The higher writing speed, the less time a laser has to heat a point on the media, thus its power has to increase proportionally. DVD burners' lasers often peak at about 200 mW, either in continuous wave and pulses, although some have been driven up to 400 mW before the diode fails.

For rewritable CD-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, or BD-RE media, the laser is used to melt a crystalline metal alloy in the recording layer of the disc. Depending on the amount of power applied, the substance may be allowed to melt back (change the phase back) into crystalline form or left in an amorphous form, enabling marks of varying reflectivity to be created.

Double-sided media may be used, but they are not easily accessed with a standard drive, as they must be physically turned over to access the data on the other side.

Double layer (DL) media have two independent data layers separated by a semi-reflective layer. Both layers are accessible from the same side, but require the optics to change the laser's focus. Traditional single layer (SL) writable media are produced with a spiral groove molded in the protective polycarbonate layer (not in the data recording layer), to lead and synchronize the speed of recording head. Double-layered writable media have: a first polycarbonate layer with a (shallow) groove, a first data layer, a semi-reflective layer, a second (spacer) polycarbonate layer with another (deep) groove, and a second data layer. The first groove spiral usually starts on the inner edge and extends outwards, while the second groove starts on the outer edge and extends inwards.

Some drives support Hewlett-Packard's LightScribe photothermal printing technology for labeling specially coated discs. Optical drives' rotational mechanism differs considerably from hard disk drives', in that the latter keep a constant angular velocity (CAV), in other words a constant number of revolutions per minute (RPM). With CAV, a higher throughput is generally achievable at an outer disc area, as compared to inner area.

On the other hand, optical drives were developed with an assumption of achieving a constant throughput, in CD drives initially equal to 150 KiB/s. It was a feature important for streaming audio data that always tend to require a constant bit rate. But to ensure no disc capacity is wasted, a head had to transfer data at a maximum linear rate at all times too, without slowing on the outer rim of disc. This had led to optical drivesuntil recently operating with a constant linear velocity (CLV). The spiral groove of the disc passed under its head at a constant speed. Of course the implication of CLV, as opposed to CAV, is that disc angular velocity is no longer constant, and spindle motor need to be designed to vary speed between 200 RPM on the outer rim and 500 RPM on the inner rim.