Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc, Irvine, California has announced that Toshiba Corp is to market a visible-light laser diode with a wavelength of 650 nanometers, said to be the shortest available: samples of the new chip, TOLD9410(S), will be available in April at $125 per piece; the laser diode emits enough brightness to replace Helium-Neon lasers, and is claimed to realise consistent rec-ognition throughout various types of bar codes regardless of printing materials that could only have been recognised by HeNe lasers previously; Toshiba established a doping method that optimises density of impurity added to the active layer by using an advanced computer simulation system to achieve the short wavelength of 650nm; the device is targeted at hand-held, bar code readers or scanners as well as the printer head of laser printers and measuring instruments; also, Toshiba is to market a high-power visible laser diode, TOLD9140(S) with a 680nm wavelength and an output power of 20mW; samples April, also at $125 a time.
