Plasma TVs Out -------> Laser TVs In (laser tv revolution.avi)

February heralded in the introduction of a successful new Australian company named Arasor International who have partnered with an American company by the name of Novalux.

As a result of this lucrative partnership - just when you thought it was safe to go out and buy a new television, it appears that big screen LCD and plasma TVs are possibly on their way - out.

David and I had been contemplating purchasing a big screen TV some time this year and now we're both glad we waited!

Laser TV is a form of rear-projection television that uses a mixture of red, blue and green lasers instead of traditional mercury lamps as a light source. The purity of laser light allows for images with far more color.

That is the top selling point for proponents of the long-awaited technology, who note that current high-definition LCD and plasma televisions display only about 40 percent of the color that the human eye can see. Laser TVs promise to show twice as much, resulting in richer images.

The new televisions will be sold by Samsung and Mitsubishi and it's developers claim that it will make plasma television obsolete, saying that it's to be the "next revolution in visual technology."

Novalux in Sunnyvale, California discovered that if you add a crystal of lithium Niobate to a gallium Indium arsenide laser, that the light output would be boosted, causing the wavelength to change from infrared to red, green, or blue.

Revealing the very first Laser TV in the world today in Sydney the pitch claims that:

... it would be half the price, twice as good, and use a quarter of the electricity of conventional plasma and LCD TVs.

Apparently, Mitsubishi has been extremely secretive about it's laser technology, only saying that the laser TV will use less power than current televisions and will go on sale later this year.

The new technology works thus:

The lasers shine on arrays of thousands of micromirrors that flip back and forth thousands of times a second to combine the light into new colors of different intensities, says inventor Aram Mooradian, founder of Novalux and former head of the quantum electronics group at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

The crux of the laser projection device is the unique optoelectronic chip, which was developed by Novalux.

While televisions will be the first commercial ventures which will use the 72 laser technology, mobile devices are currently being trialed using only 3 lasers each.

Aram Mooradian, founder of Novalux and the inventor of the new TVs, used to be the head of the quantum electronics group for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

I'll bet that Hollywood will one day be in his sites, if not already! I can only imagine what an amazing difference such technology will bring to movies and our grateful eyes.

Interesting Links:

Arasor International
Australian Securities Exchange: stock information:

Arasor International: web site

Sources:

Statesman/Business
Mitusbishi Moves to Lasers for New Televisions
New York Bureau - by David Ho

MIT - Technology Review
Laser Television - by Kate Green

News.com - Australia
Laser TV Unveiled by Adam Bennett

Image Source:
Statesman/Business