Laser diodes

Laser diodes are used in all areas of electronics from domestic equipment, through commercial applications to hash industrial environments. In all these applications laser diodes are able to provide a cost effective solution while being rugged and reliable and offering a high level of performance.

Laser diode technology has a number of advantages:
Power capability: Laser diodes are able to provide power levels from a few milliwatts right up to a few hundreds of watts.
Efficiency: Laser diode efficiency levels can exceed 30%, making laser diodes a particularly efficient method of generating coherent light.
Coherent light: The very nature of a laser is that it generates coherent light. This can be focussed to a diffraction limited spot for high density optical storage applications.
Rugged construction: Laser diodes are completely solid state and do not require fragile glass elements or critical set-up procedures. Accordingly they are able to operate under harsh conditions.
Compact: Laser diodes can be quite small allowing for laser diode technology to provide a very compact solution.
Variety of wavelengths: Using the latest technology and a variety of materials, laser diode technology is able to generate light over a wide spectrum. The use of blue light having a short wavelength allows for tighter focussing of the image for higher density storage.
Modulation: It is easy to modulate a laser diode, and this makes laser diode technology ideal for many high data rate communications applications. The modulation is achieved by directly modulating the drive current to the laser diode. This enables frequencies up to several GHz to be achieved for applications such as high-speed data communications.