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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 07 2020, @08:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the let-there-be-light dept.

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs, pronounced vixels) are high-power workhorses with applications from laser printing to LIDAR sensing. But their geometry, which consists of large alternating layers, presents fabrication difficulties, limiting the devices' output colors.

In new research, scientists built An electrically pumped surface-emitting semiconductor green laser.

The realization of a low-threshold, high-efficiency, all-epitaxial surface-emitting green laser diode will enable many exciting applications including projection displays such as pico projectors, plastic optical fiber communication, wireless communication, optical storage, smart lighting, and biosensors.

Their configuration, dubbed nanocrystal surface-emitting laser (NCSEL), divides the surface area into small nanocrystals that allow more flexible choice of individual layers. Mismatch between physical properties of large layers can easily cause failure where smaller areas are immune. According to the authors:

This work demonstrates a viable approach to realizing high-performance surface-emitting laser diodes from the deep UV to the deep visible (~210 to 600 nm) that were previously difficult to achieve.

ODE TO THE LASER:

Beautiful beams of light
coherent in frequency and phase.
The public expected your biggest impact
to be Star Wars-like Death Rays.

Instead you're in our everyday lives
from bar codes to pointers to DVD drives
They say in Science is your biggest contribution
shining a light on stars and molecular distributions.


Original Submission

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W3C Considers DRM in HTML Standard 103 comments

An anonymous coward writes:

"In March, 2013 Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, proposed adopting DRM into the HTML standard, under the name Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). Writing in October 2013, he said that "none of us as users like certain forms of content protection such as DRM at all," but cites the argument that "if content protection of some kind has to be used for videos, it is better for it to be discussed in the open at W3C" as a reason for considering the inclusion of DRM in HTML.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has objected, saying in May of last year that the plan 'defines a new "black box" for the entertainment industry, fenced off from control by the browser and end-user'. Later, they pointed out that if DRM is OK for video content, that same principle would open the door to font, web applications, and other data being locked away from users.

public-restrictedmedia, the mailing list where the issue is being debated, has seen discussion about forking HTML and establishing a new standard outside of the W3C."

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday January 07 2020, @12:58PM (4 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 07 2020, @12:58PM (#940607) Homepage Journal

    Green lasers have come a long way from the days (70's) when they were argon lasers in a sintered berylium casing. But even back then they were already used for image projection.

    At the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam, it could display on a ground-glass screen, a photochromic film, or regular photographic film. We used it for graphics and type-setting. The so-called HRD-1 (High Resolution Display)

    The ground-glass screen was approximately a square metre, if I recall correctly.

    -- hendrik

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:43PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:43PM (#940621) Journal

      Apparently, the quality and power of lasers that "ordinary" people can get their hands on has skyrocketed, even in the past 5 years or so. The used market is your friend. Don't shoot your eye out.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:57PM (2 children)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:57PM (#940627) Homepage Journal

        Back in the 70's, that was rumored to be the most powerful laser in the Netherlands. Not safe to look at. The technicians used special goggles that filtered out the laser's frequency. One mentioned that his goggles once started melting when he had his head in the wrong place by accident. The filter meant he had not seen the beam itself. But the filter had protected his eyes.

        -- hendrik

        • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 07 2020, @03:25PM

          by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday January 07 2020, @03:25PM (#940649)

          A colleague was working on a pulsed research laser a couple of decades ago and put his arm in the beam by accident. He has a nice series of scars all down his arm - knowing the pulse frequency one can calculate the speed with which he retracted his arm...

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday January 07 2020, @07:24PM

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 07 2020, @07:24PM (#940720) Homepage Journal

          Looks like the beginning of the post was deleted by accident. Let me provide the missing context.

          I was talking about an argon laser at the mathematical centre in Amsterdam. Its casing was sintered beryllium. It was used for projecting on a ground-glass screen, a photochromic film, and regular photographic film. We used it for graphics and for typesetting.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:47PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:47PM (#940623) Journal

    Bad marketing term. But it would be nice to see good laser projectors become dirt cheap.

    Optical storage innovation has slowed down but maybe holographic storage is in our future.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 07 2020, @02:38PM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday January 07 2020, @02:38PM (#940637) Journal

    Now do endothermic quadrupeds!!!

    --
    This sig for rent.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @04:01PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @04:01PM (#940657)

    Pass me the lasers, I need to burn my eyes out to see the poetry.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Coward, Anonymous on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:19AM (1 child)

      by Coward, Anonymous (7017) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:19AM (#940925) Journal

      If it rhymes, it's a poem.
      Now I have to scratch my scrotum.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @04:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @04:04PM (#941081)

        Please respect these hallowed halls
        step outside to scrape your balls

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @10:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @10:54PM (#940795)

    Finally, one thing that guns are safer than!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @11:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 07 2020, @11:27PM (#940817)

    ...Vogon University. That's some pretty bad poetry.

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