Sumitomo Electric and Sony improve the green laser diode

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Sumitomo Electric and Sony have managed to get a green laser diode, to develop a light output of 100mW at a wavelength of 530nm. The new laser diode can therefore be twice as bright shining as the current green lasers.

The two Japanese companies have the breakthrough was achieved by the use of new technologies and refine current methods of production. The researchers from Sumitomo Electric and Sony to create the new ‘true green’-laser diode using a substrate on the basis of semi-polar gallium nitride. This substrate allows a homogeneous distribution of indium is possible in the active layer of the laser diode, thereby increasing the efficiency goes up.

The developed green laser diode has an output power of 100mW and emits light with a wavelength of 530nm. Until recently, 60mW the highest attainable in the laboratory, in which light with a wavelength of 521nm is produced. The new laser diode is also much more efficient than the 60mW-green laser, which in 2010 was developed: the so-called wall-plug efficiency of the newly developed green laser diode amounts to eight per cent, while previously, an efficiency of a maximum of 1.9 percent.

The higher light output of the green laser diode is especially important for laserprojectors. Currently, green laser light obtained by using infrared GaN-laser diodes whose frequency can be doubled by using a infrared laser and an optical crystal. The downside is that the light output is limited, and that such a green laser occupies more space.