Laser Diode

A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a “solid state” semiconductor and was first discovered in 1962. Since its discovery nearly 50 years ago, laser diodes have become an essential part of our daily lives. While you may not notice its existence, there is a good chance you have used a laser diode today!

Laser diodes, due to its small size, stability, and high power outputs, are commonly found in electronic devices. Besides finding a laser diode in our high power lasers, laser diodes can be found in CD / DVD players and burners, game consoles, laser printers, laser imaging scanners, bar-code readers and much more.

Several years back, an interesting concept appeared where lasers were made from savaged electronics devices. Why waste a perfectly good laser diode inside a broken DVD player right? Turn it into a red laser! Maybe you have a broken Blu-ray player? Turn it into a 405nm blue laser!

As the concepts behind how laser diodes work are quite complicated, we’re not going to go into further details here. If you are interested in learning more about laser diodes, see what Wikipedia has to say about laser diodes.