Japanese Nichia has succeeded in developing 488nm blue-green GaN-based laser diode, will start its shipment from March. The company confirmed that estimated life time exceeded 10,000 hours and stable operation was achieved for 1000 hours with the condition of 5mW in continuous-wave operation at 25°C, case temperature.

The develooped 488nm semiconductor laser diode has some advantages such as high speed direct modulation, small power consumption, small volume, light weight, and low cost compared with conventional 488nm laser applied for biomedical applications.

Nichia will have a booth at Photonics West 2008 for exhibiting the 488nm semiconductor laser diode from January 22nd.