Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co, the creative Maplewood, Minnesota company better known as 3M, reports that it has developed the first blue-green laser from a semiconductor source, opening new possibilities for laser applications in optical recording, imaging, printing and communications: blue-green laser light has a shorter wavelength than light emitted by red and infra-red lasers, so that it could increase the amount of data stored on optical disks and compact disks, and should enhance laser imaging in medical diagnostics; 3M reckons it could also speed the replacement of glass with plastic in fibre optic telecommunications.
