New light sources for virtual and augmented reality

People are already interacting with the virtual world with the help of sophisticated sensors and 3-dimensional images. This not only affects computer gamers, but also surgeons or pilots increasingly see images of a reality enhanced by measurement data, for example through special glasses. "Technology is a valuable tool here for finding one's way safely in complicated environments," says Prof. Dr. Bernd Witzigmann, who heads the Computational Electronics and Photonics (CEP) department at the University of Kassel.

"Efficient, powerful and cost-effective light sources operating in the infrared or visible range are needed to realize the complex spatial and image measurement as well as the 3-dimensional image display," Witzigmann explains. While semiconductor lasers are powerful, and can score with high beam quality, LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are inexpensive and produce so-called incoherent light. "For imaging, this is a great advantage," Witzigmann describes.

A novel basic technology for a light source has now been developed at the University of Kassel with the company Osram Opto Semiconductors that combines the advantages of the beam properties and power density of a laser with the imaging quality and cost efficiency of an LED.

Based on commercial LED technology, a so-called superluminescent LED has been realized, which for the first time is surface-emitting and thus similarly easy to handle as a classical LED. The details of the work are described in an article in the journal Compoundsemiconductors, published in October(https://compoundsemiconductor.net/home Vol. 26, Issue 7, p. 54).

Contact

Prof. Dr. Bernd Witzigmann
Department CEP - Computational Electronics and Photonics

bernd.witzigmann@uni-kassel.de