What are the advantage and disadvantage of laser diode?
Laser diodes are numerically the most common type of laser, with
2004 sales of approximately 733 million diode lasers,[6] as
compared to 131,000 of other types of lasers.[7]
Laser diodes find wide use in telecommunication as easily
modulated and easily coupled light sources for fiber optics
communication. They are used in various measuring instruments, such
as rangefinders. Another common use is in barcode readers. Visible
lasers, typically red but later also green, are common as laser
pointers. Both low and high-power diodes are used extensively in
the printing industry both as light sources for scanning (input) of
images and for very high-speed and high-resolution printing plate
(output) manufacturing. Infrared and red laser diodes are common in
CD players, CD-ROMs and DVD technology. Violet lasers are used in
HD DVD and Blu-ray technology. Diode lasers have also found many
applications in laser absorption spectrometry (LAS) for high-speed,
low-cost assessment or monitoring of the concentration of various
species in gas phase. High-power laser diodes are used in
industrial applications such as heat treating, cladding, seam
welding and for pumping other lasers, such as diode pumped solid
state lasers.