Manufacturable vertical extended cavity surface emitting laser arrays

Abstract

Arrays of vertical extended cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) are disclosed. The functionality of two or more conventional optical components are combined into an optical unit to reduce the number of components that must be aligned during packaging.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. Ser. No. 11 / 193,317, “Projection Display Apparatus, System, and Method,” which claims the benefit and priority to provisional application Nos.: 60 / 592,890, filed on Jul. 30, 2004; 60 / 667,201 filed on Mar. 30, 2005; 60 / 667,202 filed on Mar. 30, 2005; 60 / 666,826 filed on Mar. 30, 2005; 60 / 646,072 filed on Jan. 21, 2005; and 60 / 689,582 filed on Jun. 10, 2005, the contents of each of which are also hereby incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention is generally related to light sources for use in display systems. More particularly, the present invention is directed to utilizing semiconductor lasers to replace conventional white light discharge lamps in projection display systems. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Digital light processing (DLP) is of interest for projection display systems, such as projecting images in conference rooms, home television...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] Arrays of vertical extended-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) include a gain chip having an array of emitters, an end reflector, a nonlinear crystal for intra-cavity frequency conversion, a wavelength control element, and a polarization control element. The number of components that must be aligned during packaging is reduced by forming an optical unit that combines the functionality of at least two of the individual components of the VECSEL.

[0016] In one embodiment, a volume Bragg grating acts as an optic

Problems solved by technology

There are several drawbacks to conventional DLP systems.

Additionally, conventional DLP systems waste a considerable amount of the light energy.

Second, some attributes of the displayed image, such as color saturation, are deleteriously affected by the color wheel, which can introduce artifacts into the displayed image.

Third, DLP systems include expensive optical elements.

However, conventional LED light sources tend to be more expensive than UHP lamps.

As a result, LEDs have many limitations as light sources in projection display systems

However, prior art semiconductor lasers have several drawbacks as light sources for display systems.

Compared with UHP white light sources, conventional semiconductor lasers are not cost-competitive and have a lower power (i.e., smaller total number of lumens of light).

Additionally, semiconductor lasers typically have unacceptable speckle characteristics due to the high coherence of semiconductor lasers.

In the context of a display system, a high degree of speckle results in light and dark patches across an image due to constructive and destructive interference from scatter centers.

In the prior art it was known that semiconductor lasers were not cost competitive with UHP lamps in many projection display applications.

However, in the prior ar

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