Israeli company Semi Conductor Devices (SCD) will lead a National Consortium for the development of next generation Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL).
The consortium is supported by the Israeli Innovation Authority through its MAGNET Consortium program.
The VCSEL consortium has been formed by leading high-tech companies and academic institutions, including Nvidia, Civan Advanced Technologies, Galil Microwaves, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The focus will be to develop technologies for three main applications: high power lasers, high speed telecommunication, and atomic clocks.
Since being industrialized in the 1990s, VCSELs have become important building blocks in various applications, such as fiber-optic data transmission and, recently, facial recognition for smartphones. When it comes to manufacturability, VCSELs offer significant advantages over traditional edge-emitting laser technologies, including the ability to process large quantities of diodes on a single wafer, enabling testing at the wafer level, and more.