Japan-based Sumitomo Electric Industries has developed the world’s first laser that’s able to produce “pure” green light (press release in English), meaning its semiconductor laser doesn’t need to convert light to green via another color. Until now, original semiconductor lasers were only available for the other primary colors of light, red and blue.
Sumitomo’s invention does away with the need to pass red laser light through special optical materials to generate green laser light. The new light has a wavelength of 531 nanometers and can be generated at room temperature.
Sumitomo hopes the new technology will be used in future laser TVs and palm-size projectors. The company already applied for 60 patents related to its green laser.