A novel bromoboron trinitro subphthalocyanine (BTN SubPc) thin film has been developed by vacuum evaporation for write once optical recording. The absorption and reflection properties of the sublimated BTN-SubPc thin film are pretty good at 500 nm～650 nm, which matches well with the wavelength of semiconductor laser used in digital versatile disk (DVD) systems. The optical recording performance of the BTN SubPc/Al multilayer shows that high reflectivity contrast (>30%) can be obtained at lower writing power (<10 mW) and shorter writing pulse width (300 ns) by using a He Ne laser (632.8 nm) irradiation. The results demonstrate that subphthalocyanine is a promising material for short wavelength optical recording, especially used as recording medium of DVD Recordable (DVD-R).