Wednesday, January 8, 2014

An RGB Laser And Its Applications

By Cornelia White


An RGB laser is that laser that emits three primary colors of light. These are red light, green light and blue light, hence the acronym RGB. These can be produced in a single beam for all the three colors or separate beams for each of the color. Through the process of optical amplification of stimulated emissions of electromagnetic radiations, it is possible to obtain many more colors from these primary colors.

RGB laser sources have proven to perform better than other arc lamps beam sources. While the later are normally cheaper sources of beams, they come with limited lifetime, poor image quality and impossibility of high wall-plug efficiency. This is particularly as a result of poor spatial coherence and availability of less color space, a result of which has seen a rapid rise in their demand.

These types of lasers achieve coherence of wavelengths, a reason why they outperform many other sources of beams. The coherence is on both time and space allowing for inferences. The consistency in the change of phase properties over a long distance results into high quality images that make them preferred for entertainment and other professional applications.

These lasers are known to produce beams of the three primary colors with very narrow optical bandwidth making them close to the monochromatic light beams. They are thus capable of producing very clear images on mixing, the reason why they are getting more application like in cathode tube displays, color printers and lamp-based beamers.

These beamers however are known to emit beams that are low in power. With cinema projectors requiring over 10 W of power per color, the use of RGB sources is limited. In addition to power insufficiency, there other challenges include maturity and cost effectiveness. There is also a need of better quality of beam for efficient working of these beamers.

External optical modulators are normally used in these types of beamers although RGB sources are fitted with power-modulators for better signals in situations where the optical modulator use is made impossible as a result of low power miniature devices. Laser diodes for instance are used to achieve modulation bandwidth between 10 to 100 megahertz or even much higher resolutions.

The red, green and blue lasers come in several types depending on the design and construction. One method involves the use of three different types of lasers with each emitting beam of a particular color. These forms of visible beam lasers are however not as suitable as the non visible ones that are near infrared in nature.

The other method is the use of an infrared solid-state laser where a single near-infrared laser generate a single color that then undergoes through different stages of nonlinear frequency conversion to produce the three colored beams. There are many other schemes of producing the desired wave lengths such as through combination of parametric oscillators, some frequency mixers and even frequency doublers in addition to other methods.

With the technological advancement, better performing RGB laser machines are being produced. With the current attempt to introduce the fourth color in this type of laser, something that will even improve their performers for the better. The expert prediction is that these forms of lasers will be replacing the other forms of beamers.




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