Technical Insight
Toyoda Gosei makes commercial blue laser (News from Japan)
Toyoda Gosei, a supplier of nitride-based LEDs, is poised to join its rival Nichia as a commercial supplier of short-wavelength, bluish-purple laser diodes. Having developed a manufacturing technology for the laser, Toyoda Gosei plans to start sample shipments this fall. The device has a wavelength of 410 nm with a 3 mW output, and an estimated life of more than 5000 hours under continuous oscillation at room temperature. The basic research for the GaN-based laser was carried out under the direction of Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Meijo University and it was funded in part by the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST). The research, which took seven years and cost about 700 million ($5.8 million), yielded several technological breakthroughs. Toyoda Gosei developed a growth technique to improve the quality of the multi-quantum-well layers, included an optical waveguiding structure into the device, and developed a packaging technology that excels in heat radiation. The manufacturer has filed about fifty patent applications in connection with this GaN-based laser research. Short-wavelength laser diodes are likely to be used as the light source in next-generation, high-capacity DVD players, and could also be used in applications such as laser printers and full-color projector-type laser displays.
