Compact IR laser now available for face recognition on mobiles

RS Components now offers its first product from the Bidos product family from Osram Opto Semiconductors. The Bidos PLPVQ940A gives design engineers a compact, cost-effective and homogeneous 'flood illumination' source for facial recognition on mobile devices. The device is created as a light source for facial recognition, illuminating the face evenly and so allowing the system to capture high-quality images for positive identification. Because infrared light is used, the captured image is not subjected to distortion due to ambient lighting. A VCSEL is a light source with a monolithic laser resonator that radiates light vertically to the semiconductor device's surface, offering coherent light with directed emission. VCSELs combine the homogeneous illumination, high power density and simple packaging of a conventional IRED with the narrow spectral width and speed of the laser. Beam divergence is narrower, installation into target devices simpler and more cost-efficient, and wavelength sensitivity to temperature fluctuations much less than for an EEL diode. Coupling efficiency to optical fibres is high. The device has a wavelength of 940nm, efficiency as high as 27%, and an output power of 300mW (typical peak outpower of 600mW). It is packaged as a 1.9mm x 2.2mm x 0.85mm SMD and offers illumination over a 65-degree x 78-degree angle spread.