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To: drivaldog who wrote (717)	11/18/1997 9:20:00 PM
From: ZinMaster	Respond to of 7720

Elusive blue laser diode? I thought that Nichia demonstrated a gallium nitride blue laser diode a while ago. ...searching CNN.... Ahh.....the report from UC Santa Barbara is the first blue laser diode made at a university: The article is mostly fluff, but here it is: (Copied from CNN cnn.com ) School beaming over its blue laser November 17, 1997 Web posted at: 11:21 p.m. EST (0421 GMT) From Correspondent Jim Hill SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Engineering students at the University of California at Santa Barbara are looking into the future and seeing blue -- the first blue laser developed by a university. The blue laser is considered the hottest development in the field of optoelectronics and has touched off a competition that is as intense and focused as a laser beam itself. Companies around the world are racing to perfect and patent the technology for color printers and a new generation of compact discs. "I was jumping up and down. It was incredible," said Kehl Sink, a graduate student. "Just a feeling of finally after two years of work having this come true." Mike Mark, another graduate student said: "The blue laser has sort of been the Holy Grail of making semi-conductor lasers." That's because blue is better than the standard red laser in high-tech electronics. "Blue lasers have shorter wave lengths so you can focus in to tighter spots and therefore you can store more information on a compact disc because you store it more tightly," said Amber Abare, a graduate student. Professor Larry Coldren of UC-Santa Barbara said: "There's a market, I guess, that people see on the horizon for billions of dollars, and so many companies want to get into this." Blue has been baffling for engineers. Only a few companies in Japan and the United States, as well as the Santa Barbara team, have such a laser. "People have been trying to make it for 25 years and it's basically because it's such high energy that it's been difficult to make," said Professor Steven Denbaars of UC-Santa Barbara. UC researchers use gallium nitride heated in a high temperature process to form wafers that produce blue diode laser light. Unlike the toxic processes in many semi-conductor operations, this is clean. "It's really quite a remarkable process. It's as pollution-free as you can get. It's very exciting," said Professor Umesh Mishra of UC-Santa Barbara. The laser must be perfected before it can be used in electronics. But experts say by the turn of the century, consumers will be seeing blue.