European research groups develop GaN blue laser
The device was grown at the Institute for Solid State Physics at the University of Bremen on a 3 x 2-inch MOCVD reactor provided by Thomas Swan Scientific Equipment Ltd.
Led by Professor Detlef Hommel, the Bremen team is among the few university research groups to achieve emission from an electrically-pumped GaN blue laser. Professor Hommel’s team achieved the result in collaboration with Professor Marc Illegem’s group at the EPFL.
As a result of their short wavelength, violet lasers are expected to find applications in mass storage optical recording systems and DVD players. Such devices are currently commercially available from Nichia, and are under development at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan and companies such as Cree, Toyoda Gosei, Sanyo and Osram Opto Semiconductors.
“We are very proud to have succeeded in accomplishing an electrically pumped GaN-based laser,” said Professor Hommel. “This represents a major milestone in European research into blue-emitting laser diodes taking strong international competition into account. The Thomas Swan reactor based on the closed-coupled showerhead principle has been one key factor leading to the successful growth of our laser structures.”
The research team now plans to achieve a continuous-wave output from the laser diodes.
