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Laser TV — the Death of Plasma?
spoco2 writes, "As reported in major news outlets yesterday in Australia (The Age, the Herald Sun), a new television technology has been developed which is touted (by the developers) as far and away superior to both plasma and LCD. From The Age: 'With a worldwide launch date scheduled for Christmas 2007, under recognisable brands like Mitsubishi and Samsung, Novalux chief executive Jean-Michel Pelaprat is so bold as to predict the death of plasma. "If you look at any screen today, the color content is roughly about 30-35 per cent of what the eye can see," he said. "But for the very first time with a laser TV we'll be able to see 90 per cent of what the eye can see. All of a sudden what you see is a lifelike image on display."' The developing company, Arasor International, is said to be listing on the Australian stock exchange shortly."
One of the major problems with using lasers for displays is speckle, the random interference patterns that develop as the highly coherent laser beam hits the display screen (whose surface is far from smooth when compared to the wavelengths of laser used). This greatly diminishes the quality of display and more importantly, anyone sitting in front of this for extended period is likely to get headache and temporary vision problems.
Extended field trails on psychophysical effects are needed before such technology is approved by FDA or equivalent regulatory organizaiton.
Laser TV has existed for a long time using Argon (blue, green) and Krypton (red) lasers as a white light source (either mixed gas or two lasers) The color is chosen using an AOM or a PCAOM (see a patent for laser TV at: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6426781.html ).
The new breakthrough is that we have solid state Diode Pumped Solid State lasers (specifically high power DPSS), you should be familiar with the 532nm green laser pointers. The green is achived through frequency doubling 1064nm infared DPSS lasers. Red lasers need not be frequency doubled because they can manufacture Diode lasers to that frequency and is available in higher power ranges. Blue DPSS lasers were developed, usign 808nm infared lasers frequency doubled, the power available is still really low, (and I can't wait to rip apart a blue ray drive to get the laser out!) and the lasers are extremely expensive. Hopefully with greater production of blue lasers the prices will go down.
The next issue to deal with in the U.S. (I don't know austrailian law) lasers are regulated by the FDA and any laser over the power of 5mw that exposes radiation to the public has to have an FDA varience to legally operate. I am wondering how this TV would be classified. I really would prefer a solid state DPSS laser projector to replace easily broken, expensive to maintain, LCD projectors. If you need more information about this technology sam's laser faq, and the guys at alt.lasers are nice and answer questions.
Peace,
Adam