Furukawa Electric Review No.52Development of High-Power Blue Laser Diodes

Principal Researcher, NICHIA CORPORATION Shinichi Nagahama

With the aim of applying the blue laser diode to the laser processing, we have developed the high-power Gallium Nitride-based (GaN-based) blue laser diodes. Starting from the technical findings of the existing GaN laser diodes for display applications, we achieved the high output power of 11.2 W, the highest value in the world for an optical output power per single emitter of a GaN-based blue laser diode, by optimizing the device structure and adapting a new package with low-thermal resistance. In addition, from the results of each reliability evaluation, we confirmed that the Blue Laser Diode which we have developed is promising for its greatly high optical output stability and low failure rate, and therefore the device that is sufficiently practical as the light source for the laser processing.