Another rival for Blue-ray? New laser diode brings more recording capacity to the optical disk.

The leading Japanese company in the field of optics "Hamamatsu Photonics" succeeded in developing new laser diode which could emit ultra-short wavelength laser. The technology leads to optical disk has even higher recording density than Blu-ray, which means more capacity.

Read on for details.
Hamamatsu Photonics oscillates the world's first AlGaN laser diode to emit 342 nm ultraviolet light

According to this release, Hamamatsu Photonics succeeded in emitting the semiconductor laser of 342 nanometers wavelength using AlGaN(aluminum gallium nitride) laser diode.

Ultra-short wavelength laser can be applied into more precise observation like chemical contamination, laser printing, high-density recording, surface inspection on silicone wafer, bio technology, accurate forging, and so on.

Emitting laser on paper. Pigment in the paper reflects blue ray. Laser itself is invisible for it's in ultraviolet range.

The laser used in CDs has wavelength of 780 nanometers, 650 nanometers in the DVD and 405 nanometers in Blu-rays. The shorter the wavelength gets, the higher recording density becomes. How much improvement for this time?

This article was originally posted in Japanese at 11:53 July 29, 2008.