Peter V, here's your blue laser....................
Nichia Chemical Puts Blue Laser into
Use
November 10, 1997 (TOKYO) -- Nichia Chemical
Industries Ltd., a major Japanese manufacturer of
fluorescence materials, said it succeeded in continuous-wave operation
of a blue-violet laser with a wavelength of about 400nm for more than
10,000 hours.
That can treble the storage capacity of DVDs from the current 4.7GB
to 13-14GB in one stroke.
The semiconductor lasers, with 5,000-10,000 hours of
continuous-wave operation, are indispensable for CD and DVD drives.
Having completed high-temperature acceleration tests under an
operating temperature of 50 degrees centigrade, the company
evaluated its continuous-wave operation for normal room temperatures
and concluded that the duration of continuous-wave operation is
10,000 hours.
Nichia Chemical succeeded for the first time in the world in
continuous-wave operation. A company researcher said he hopes it will
begin sampling the product in 1998.
Gallium-nitrogen materials are used for the semiconductor laser. The
rapid progress in extending the time of continuous-wave operation was
attributed to a newly developed crystal growth technology that
drastically decreases crystal defects, and to a super-lattice structure
adopted into the crystal structure, the researcher said.
That breakthrough will help optical disk makers use blue-violet laser to
sharply accelerate the development of new-generation DVDs that can
record a full screen of play with the image quality of high-definition
television.
Related story: Japan Targets Year 2000 for 5-10GB Optical Disks
(Nikkei Electronics) |
