Sharp Readies BD-100 Blu-ray Laser

At the 70th Autumn Meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics being held this week, Sharp announced that they have successfully created a Blu-ray laser diode which operates at a maximum of 500mW, enough to burn four-layer Blu-ray discs. This would allow for, when approved by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), Blu-ray discs with either 75GB or 100GB capacities.

Sharp was able to advance Blu-ray laser diode technology by using a new method to process the edge face of the resonator. Typically, the crystal in the semiconductor is protected by a dielectric film. The consumer electronics company found that by introducing an aluminum oxynitride divider, performance of the diode increased exponentially.

They have performed many test on the diode, operating it more than 1000 hours straight at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit) at full power, and have determined it ready for mass production.

The only hurdle now is the BDA will have to adopt the BD-75 and BD-100 into the Blu-ray format, but once that happens, Sharp hopes to have commercially ready products soon after.