We missed this one – but on the 25th of January Mitsubishi Electric (TYO:6503) announced their launch of their new red laser diode (ML520G72) – the worlds highest output ability red laser diode. With a 638 nanometer wavelength this new laser diode is extremely efficient and is ideal for use in pico projector’s and other laser based small display technologies. Effectively offering a red light source with extremely high brightness this red laser from Mitsubishi could bring a whole new level to pico projector’s running on lasers.

We already know about the advantages of laser micro projector drivers over LED ones, laser’s are much more power efficient, require much less power and are brighter. They can also be smaller and none of them require you to focus them. Focus-free operation alone would be enough to pull a crowd, so with the other advantages to laser based pico projector’s its not surprising big names such as Sony are now looking into them.

This laser diode offers 500mW of output (worlds highest within the 638 nm band) which if combined with equal green and blue would mean a pico projector could be produced that would output focus-free video at up to 60 lumens. This if (or when?) achieved would blow all current LED based pico’s out of the water – (these are typically around 10-15 lumens) – and whats more it would probably be silent as a pose to fan cooled!

With laser samples of the ML520G72 shipping from a week ago its likely we could see uprated, brighter laser pico projector’s within 6 months thanks to this development from Mitsubishi.