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Any Color You Like: NIST Scientists Create 'Any Wavelength' Lasers

13 points by geox 6mo ago

cyanydeez 6mo ago
hopefully they get a license from Pantone
btreecat 6mo ago
I hope this has future applications in laser projectors
- adrian_b 6mo ago
  Laser projectors already include green lasers made by the same principle, but made from separate semiconductor lasers and non-linear crystals. With this technology, which integrates the non-linear crystal with the semiconductor laser, it may become possible to make cheaper laser projectors, either by making an integrated green laser, or perhaps even an integrated triple laser, for all 3 primaries, but the difference in cost will not be great, because the green laser is a rather small fraction of the total cost (though it may be more expensive than the red and blue lasers together).
  - btreecat 6mo ago
    Thank you for a great explanation!
mycall 6mo ago
LaserCube [0] uses additive color mixing using three primary laser diodes (RGB) aligned using dichroic mirrors (which reflect specific wavelengths while allowing others to pass through) so that they exit the aperture as a single, combined beam. Alvanometer scanners tuned to 30,000 points per second is fast enough to trick the eyes. The complexity of the system would decrease with an anycolor laser. The only other attempt I have seen that is similar is Seb Lee-Delisle who created a project called "Laser Tempest," which involved hacking the original code of the 1981 Atari classic to run on a high-powered RGB (white light) laser projector. By bypassing the traditional CRT monitor and sending the vector data directly to the laser's galvanometers, he was able to project the game at a massive scale onto walls, buildings, and large screens at various technology and arts festivals. [0] https://www.laseros.com https://www.laseros.com
- qnleigh 6mo ago
  Combining red, green and blue tricks our eyes into perceiving any color that we can perceive, but it's a very different thing to make a laser that can output any wavelength, like they do here.
- emchammer 6mo ago
  The Laser Tempest sounds neat but I cannot find it, could you provide a link?
  - mycall 6mo ago
    I only saw it once at a vintage computer expo around 2002. I don't have any more information than that.
adrian_b 6mo ago
Free research article: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08092 https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08092 TLDR: This is not a new kind of laser. They have developed a method of growing on semiconductor wafers a kind of crystal with non-linear optical properties (Ta2O5, tantalum oxide, like in the tantalum electrolytic capacitors). With a non-linear crystal, there are many variants of transforming the color of a laser, e.g. by generating harmonics, by non-linear mixing light from lasers of different colors or by pumping with the laser a parametric oscillator that produces a different color from that of the laser. You may be able to produce almost any color, but not with a single device, and the energy efficiency of producing various colors can be very different. This is similar to how green laser pointers work. Because unlike for red or for blue, there are no good green semiconductor lasers, the green laser pointers have an infrared laser whose output is converted into green light by a non-linear crystal.

13 points by geox 6mo ago

cyanydeez 6mo ago

hopefully they get a license from Pantone

btreecat 6mo ago

I hope this has future applications in laser projectors

adrian_b 6mo ago
Laser projectors already include green lasers made by the same principle, but made from separate semiconductor lasers and non-linear crystals. With this technology, which integrates the non-linear crystal with the semiconductor laser, it may become possible to make cheaper laser projectors, either by making an integrated green laser, or perhaps even an integrated triple laser, for all 3 primaries, but the difference in cost will not be great, because the green laser is a rather small fraction of the total cost (though it may be more expensive than the red and blue lasers together).
- btreecat 6mo ago
  Thank you for a great explanation!

mycall 6mo ago

LaserCube [0] uses additive color mixing using three primary laser diodes (RGB) aligned using dichroic mirrors (which reflect specific wavelengths while allowing others to pass through) so that they exit the aperture as a single, combined beam. Alvanometer scanners tuned to 30,000 points per second is fast enough to trick the eyes. The complexity of the system would decrease with an anycolor laser. The only other attempt I have seen that is similar is Seb Lee-Delisle who created a project called "Laser Tempest," which involved hacking the original code of the 1981 Atari classic to run on a high-powered RGB (white light) laser projector. By bypassing the traditional CRT monitor and sending the vector data directly to the laser's galvanometers, he was able to project the game at a massive scale onto walls, buildings, and large screens at various technology and arts festivals. [0] https://www.laseros.com https://www.laseros.com

qnleigh 6mo ago
Combining red, green and blue tricks our eyes into perceiving any color that we can perceive, but it's a very different thing to make a laser that can output any wavelength, like they do here.
emchammer 6mo ago
The Laser Tempest sounds neat but I cannot find it, could you provide a link?
- mycall 6mo ago
  I only saw it once at a vintage computer expo around 2002. I don't have any more information than that.

adrian_b 6mo ago

Free research article: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08092 https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08092 TLDR: This is not a new kind of laser. They have developed a method of growing on semiconductor wafers a kind of crystal with non-linear optical properties (Ta2O5, tantalum oxide, like in the tantalum electrolytic capacitors). With a non-linear crystal, there are many variants of transforming the color of a laser, e.g. by generating harmonics, by non-linear mixing light from lasers of different colors or by pumping with the laser a parametric oscillator that produces a different color from that of the laser. You may be able to produce almost any color, but not with a single device, and the energy efficiency of producing various colors can be very different. This is similar to how green laser pointers work. Because unlike for red or for blue, there are no good green semiconductor lasers, the green laser pointers have an infrared laser whose output is converted into green light by a non-linear crystal.