Japanese firms to develop technology through QD Laser Inc joint venture

Fujitsu and Mitsui will cooperate to develop and manufacture quantum dot laser technology, Fujitsu announced today. The two companies have set up a joint venture entitled QD Laser Inc.

Quantum dot lasers produce a more stable output than conventional semiconductor lasers because they are much less affected by temperature variations.

As a result, they produce fewer errors when used for data communications or in optical disk drives.

This guaranteed stability enables them to squeeze more bandwidth out of existing optical fibre lines, or to store more data on optical disk drives. The lasers also waste less energy, and have lower power consumption.

QD Laser Inc will build on quantum dot laser research carried out by Fujitsu and the University of Tokyo. It will have starting capital of just over $300m, Fujitsu said.

Next-generation blue laser technology, such as that employed in the Blu-ray optical disk used in Sony's forthcoming PlayStation 3 games console, is based on early quantum dot research.