445nm blue diodes

[Meatball]

they don't seem to be terribly efficient right now, judging by the graphs... is this completely new technology or something? What kind of industries need blue diodes? What are these even good for on an industrial scale?

 

[GooeyGus]

they don't seem to be terribly efficient right now, judging by the graphs... is this completely new technology or something? What kind of industries need blue diodes? What are these even good for on an industrial scale?

Everything.

Flouroscopy, DNA sequencing, semiconductor inspection, televisions, and even medical uses.

Until now the argon laser and the HeCd lasers have dominated the industrial field when a blue or green wavelength was needed.

Now they are slowly becoming obsolete as a wider range of blue diodes hit the market.

 

[pullbangdead]

Everything.

Flouroscopy, DNA sequencing, semiconductor inspection, televisions, and even medical uses.

Until now the argon laser and the HeCd lasers have dominated the industrial field when a blue or green wavelength was needed.

Now they are slowly becoming obsolete as a wider range of blue diodes hit the market.

Exactly, infinitely useful when you need blue coherent light. Heck of a lot cheaper, and smaller and much more flexible to boot.

they don't seem to be terribly efficient right now, judging by the graphs... is this completely new technology or something? What kind of industries need blue diodes? What are these even good for on an industrial scale?

It is new technology, just as violet is new technology. Blue laser diodes are currently made mostly the same way as violet laser diodes, but they're tougher to make, for several reasons. You have to be a lot more careful with everything when growing and making the diode, you have a lot less margin for error. The farther from violet/towards blue/towards green you get, the smaller your margin of error gets.

 

[BuildAbluraylaser]

These diodes are so cool!
If you ever reach 200$ a piece or less, I would buy one for sure.

 

[Meatball]

Wow I had no idea! Quite the bigger deal than I previously thought! If these diode really catch in some industries.... perhaps their bulk price alone would sink, as availability rises..

 

[john_lawson]

wow if these come out at less that 100 bucks my marriage will be over
because i will spend myself into a divorce

 

[HIMNL9]

But if you want Nichia products, you need to find some industry that already have affairs with them in big quantity, cause perhaps they try to discourage individual / private users .....

I got from them some of their oval r, g and b high intensity leds , and some of the high flux white ones, but had to pass through a company that already buy them for industrial use, and always buy something like 200 / 300 pieces, for get them at a reasonable price ..... and this person don't use lasers, anyway.

Can also try to ask him if he can ask them for quantity price (if i ask as private, they reply with absurd prices), but i see some problems.

First, this may take a lot of time, cause i see this person, maybe, one or two times each month (we don't live in the same town).

Second, also if is possible to get them at a reasonable price, sending items from here through the world, same as receiving them, is a damn PITA, for our custom rules.

Third, have you read the pdf ? ..... it say clearly "This model is engineering sample for evaluation or design purpose only. Life time is not guaranteed" ..... this mean that there is no warranty that the diode keep a reasonable lifetime at his power, that, imho, for something so high price, must be at least years

Last, also if they reply, probably they ask for a lot of pieces, as minimum sale ..... does all this worth the effort ?

 

[Benm]

Flouroscopy, DNA sequencing, semiconductor inspection, televisions, and even medical uses.

I think the main low-cost large scale applications for these will be projection for consumer devices - the kind where you project a screen onto a wall from a cellphone or similar device.

Industrial application isn't very likely to bring the price down rapidly... there is some volume there, but $500 more or less on a (new) dna sequencer is not a big deal.

 

[GooeyGus]

If I could get a half watt 445nm diode for $500 I would buy one in a heartbeat.

 

[IgorT]

I will be shipping blue diodes soon. These are true blue color at 445nm. I won't respond to anything here too fast, so don't flame me. I do this full time (lasers) and my time is in other area. Members of LPF know me on eBay, etc. as lasrs4u there, or my web site directly as (my LPF name) DOT COM. Some well respected memebrs know me, and mite chime in here.
These are sold as 50mW CW, with a MAX data sheet rating of 80mW @ max, 120mA. I'm sure a brave LPF member will pop them at 200mW just to try!
Now pricing... They are $1500 diodes- at single item price. At LPF we do GB at 100pcs, right? So then they are like $550. Don't shoot me, as the 405nm 8X drives were hundreds when they were first discovered, and with these, they are new, blue, with a data sheet, and no prying out of a metal mount, etc. At 1K pcs, we can sell them at $200 and under. I want to see how much interest there are for these. They run at 5.5 volts like violet. I'll try to follow this thread, but my time is limited . see you at my site, and ebay.

This is good stuff. I think i know almost exactly which diode this is (read the datasheet once from the manufacturer), the price then was $800 10pcs min order for samples.

For a blue diode rated at 50mW, we could expect similar results as with the PHRs, when it comes to power. So 100mW would be safe to do through plastics in the long run.

I was actually considering this when it was $800 a pop ($1500?!? :huh, and i even wanted to sacrifice one to the torture chamber just to see what they can handle.


100pcs GB is possible, but $550 still sounds harsh. Until you consider that they are blue. But one has to die... :cryyy: Hmm, maybe if the sacrificial lamb was group-paid, for everyone's benefit...

 

[Corn_On_The_Cob]

That's insane.. I would never throw away that much money to see how much these can put out. If I had one of these diodes, I would be afraid to run it over 40 mW. lol

How long do you guys think we'll be waiting before the price of blues comes down to a more reasonable price?

 

[pullbangdead]

That's insane.. I would never throw away that much money to see how much these can put out. If I had one of these diodes, I would be afraid to run it over 40 mW. lol

How long do you guys think we'll be waiting before the price of blues comes down to a more reasonable price?

Exactly as long as it takes until they're being mass-produced for something else. Right now, they're little more than an oddity/"oooh-aaah" product. They're finding some use, but NOTHING on a large scale like violets have. The ONLY reason violet is cheap is because it's being mass-produced, and it's also probably being subsidized.

It's actually quite possible that drive makers are losing money on a lot of the Blu-Ray drives they're making because the diodes are so expensive, but luckily selling a Blu-Ray drive means that you'll ALSO be selling Blu-Ray disks, which have a VERY high profit margin. They can lose some money on the diodes, because they make it up with disk sales.

A blue diode is really no more expensive to make, individually, than a violet diode is. Prices of violets are lower purely because of market dynamics.

 

[Benm]

Well, there are reasons why the are more expensive to make, similar to red diodes of wavelengths under 650 nm or so. Price and mass production work 2 ways. DVD's adopted 660 nm because the diodes for that were affordable to produce. Something like 620 was not viable at the time because of laser costs, even though it would have resulted in higher data density with little or no additional cost in producing the disks.

As far as blu rays are concerned, i think they are being sold at a loss. Not that the actual diode would cost over $10 at all, but if you consider complete sleds on the market for under $15, it doesnt seem likely that they make a profit on those.

 

[iskor12]

You do realize that all of these sleds are coming from China where it most likely only costs them $5 to make them.

 

[Benm]

I do, but even with low work prices, those sleds are pretty nifty pieces of technology containing a lot more than just a hunk of metal and a laser diode. Bunch of optics, red diode, sensor, little lc to correct the wavefront etc.

I wonder what the manufacturers of these pay for the diodes they put into them - can't be more than a few dollars if even that much.

 

[charliebruce]

Hi,
I noticed you said you had "industrial customers" a few posts back, right? So when you order for your industrial customers, in large quantities, why can't you, say, add 100 extra to the order? That way, we as a communtiy get a lower price (as if we were buying in 1k+ quantities) and you take a cut of the profit? That way, everybody wins...