To provide a thin film (used especially for a protective film) for an optical information recording medium having stable amorphous properties, excellent adhesiveness to a recording layer and mechanical characteristics and high transmittance and hardly generating deterioration of the adjacent recording layer and an adjacent reflection layer because of its non-sulfide based constitution, to provide its manufacturing method and to provide a sputtering target which can be applied thereto.

The sputtering target for forming the protective film for the optical information recording medium consists of a material which consists essentially of Ta2O5 and to which a glass forming oxide is added and has ≥90% transmittance (405 nm wavelength) and a refractive index of 1.8 to 2.4 (405 nm wavelength).