The development of high-power semiconductor green laser pointer has made many important applications possible. These lasers have replaced many traditional technologies and enabled new product categories. With the cost and performance increasing by more than 10 times every ten years, high-power semiconductor lasers have disrupted the normal operation of the market in unpredictable ways. Although it is difficult to accurately predict the future application situation, it is very meaningful to review the development history of the past three decades and provide a framework possibility for the development of the next decade.
1980s: Optical storage and first niche applications. Optical storage is the first large-scale application in the semiconductor laser industry. Shortly after Hall first demonstrated the infrared semiconductor laser, General Electric showed the first visible red semiconductor laser. Twenty years later, compact discs (CDs) were introduced to the market, followed by the optical storage market.
The continuous innovation of semiconductor laser technology has brought the development of optical storage technologies such as digital versatile discs (DVD) and Blu-ray discs (BD). This is the first large market for semiconductor lasers, but typically moderate power levels limit other applications to relatively small niche markets, such as thermal printing, medical applications, and selected aerospace and defense applications.
1990s: Optical networks prevail. In the 1990s, semiconductor lasers became the key to communication networks. Semiconductor green laser pointers are used to transmit signals through fiber optic networks, but the higher power single-mode pump lasers used for optical amplifiers are critical to achieving the scale of optical networks and truly supporting the growth of Internet data.