Provided is a recording apparatus including a self-excited oscillation semiconductor laser that has a double quantum well separate confinement heterostructure and includes a saturable absorber section to which a negative bias voltage is applied and a gain section into which a gain current is injected, an optical separation unit, an objective lens, a light reception element, a pulse detection unit, a reference signal generation unit, a phase comparison unit, a recording signal generation unit, and a control unit.