Bright future predicted for diode-laser market

Bright future predicted for diode-laser market

The worldwide market for diode lasers with wavelengths less than 1 µm will exceed $1.2 billion by the year 2000, according to a recent report by Strategies Unlimited (Mountain View, CA), an optoelectronics-industry market-research firm and cohost with Laser Focus World of the 1997 Laser Marketplace Seminar. The report, Laser Diode Market Review and Forecast--1996, analyzes the market for diode lasers in 29 nontelecommunications applications from 1995 to 2000. Driven primarily by the demand for new digital videodisk and computer high-speed CD-ROMs, the market will increase from $486 million in 1995 to $1.24 billion by 2000. According to Strategies Unlimited, the future holds promise for even shorter-wavelength blue-green (420-520-nm) devices. The blue-green diode laser should appear in high-density optical-storage applications by the end of the decade. Although there are 34 manufacturers of diode lasers worldwide, just nine companies account for 97% of the 1995 revenue. The majority of low-power diode lasers (<10 mW) are supplied by Japanese firms, while North American companies have taken a leading role in the high-power diode-laser market (>100 mW).