Widly Applications of Semiconductor Lasers
Semiconductor lasers have a wide wavelength range, are simple to manufacture, are low in cost, and are easy to mass produce. Its small size, light weight, stable performance and long life are widely favored by the market. As a new kind of light source, semiconductor lasers have been widely used in industrial applications, laser radar, laser display, sensing, lighting, projection, communication, medical and military research. In the future, there are still very many power, wavelength and working methods. Great expansion space. As Academician Liu Zejin said; semiconductor lasers are the most promising laser sources in the future.
According to data from the Laser Manufacture News Industry Research Institute, the Asia-Pacific region has become the world's largest and fastest-growing region for semiconductor laser devices. In 2016, global semiconductor laser sales revenue reached US$4.68 billion, accounting for 45% of all laser sales revenue. It is expected to exceed $10 billion by 2020 (including semiconductor lasers for communications, industrial processing, medical applications, etc.).
Military field application
Semiconductor lasers are widely used in military fields such as laser guidance tracking, laser radar, laser fuze, laser ranging, laser communication power supply, laser analog weapon, laser aiming alarm, laser communication and laser gyro. The integration of military and civilian development is a national strategy. It has pointed out the direction for the development of the laser industry. The developed countries all over the world attach great importance to the military application of high-power high-energy lasers. I believe that in the future, the military industry will be one of the major consumer markets for semiconductor lasers.
Communication field application
In optical fiber communication, semiconductor lasers are the emission sources of various data and image transmission systems. In the future, they are the only practical light sources for all-optical communication networks such as all-optical converters, optical switching, optical routing, and optical forwarding. Today, it is the fastest growing and most important source of light in the field of optical communications. According to the analysis of the Prospective Research Institute, communication applications account for 32.2% of semiconductor laser sales, making it the largest application area. Semiconductor lasers are used in many aspects of communications, including wireless, fiber optic, underwater, satellite, and free-space communications.
Precision machining applications
The integrated circuit can be cut, punctured, etc. by means of a high-energy ultrashort optical pulse generated by a Q-switched semiconductor laser. In general machining, high-power semiconductor lasers have begun to be used for soldering, phase change hardening of materials, surface cladding of materials, material joining, surface treatment of titanium alloys, improvement of surface lubricity characteristics of engineering materials, laser cleaning, and auxiliary Mechanical processing and other aspects.
Information storage application
Semiconductor lasers have been used in optical disk memories, and their greatest advantage is the large amount of stored sound, text, and image information. Blue and green lasers are used to increase the storage density of the optical disc. In information processing applications, a two-dimensional array of surface emitting semiconductor lasers is an ideal source for optical parallel processing systems and is used in optical computers and neural networks.
Environmental testing application
In environmental testing, the ambient gas is analyzed by analyzing the spectrum to monitor air pollution, automobile exhaust, and the like. It is industrially used to monitor the process of vapor deposition.
Laser display application
High definition laser TV. In the near future, a semiconductor laser TV without a cathode ray tube can be put on the market. It uses red, blue and green lasers to estimate that its power consumption is 20% lower than that of existing TV sets.
Life sciences application
In medical applications, semiconductor lasers are widely used in general surgery, orthopedics, dermatology, urology, obstetrics and gynaecology, in addition to soft tissue resection, tissue bonding, coagulation and vaporization. It is also used in laser kinetic therapy to selectively accumulate photoactive substances having affinity with tumors in cancer tissues, and to cause cancer tissue to be necrotic by irradiation with a semiconductor laser without any damage to healthy tissues.